Fedora Core is a great product that comes with a large base of services and applications. It has always been an outstanding platform for providing services and technical applications. But you didn't find Fedora Core, until recently, on many of the world's workday computers; in other words, it lacked a presence on the "desktop."

The Fedora Core problem was its lack of a full-blown office suite to work with word processing documents, spreadsheets, and other documents. Fortunately, desktop productivity suites (such as OpenOffice and its sister application, StarOffice) have moved Linux from the back office to the front.

If you're familiar with Microsoft Office, you can find your way around OpenOffice. The look and feel are a little different, but the idea is the same. OpenOffice is free and a part of open source.

Firing up OpenOffice

Fedora Core provides OpenOffice and installs it by default. OpenOffice is easy to access. Click the GNOME Menu button and then choose Office --> OpenOffice.org Writer. You can choose some of, but not all, the other OpenOffice functions from this menu too. However, you can start the spreadsheet program, Calc, only from an OpenOffice window. From any window (Writer or Impress, for example), choose File --> New --> Spreadsheet to open Calc.) After thinking about life for a few seconds, the OpenOffice window appears.

The first time you start OpenOffice, it asks whether you want to use the workstation or personal model. The former installs the OpenOffice programs in a central location accessible to all users; the latter option installs a copy of OpenOffice in your home directory.

You can access all OpenOffice functions by clicking the File button, in the upper-left corner of the window, and then the option you want.

Using OpenOffice

The following list introduces the functions; you're probably familiar with the layout and operation of the menu if you have used Microsoft Office. Please experiment with your own test documents and consult the online help system for more information.

• File: As you may expect, you can open, close, save, and otherwise manipulate OpenOffice documents by using the File menu. Writer files have the .sxw extension. You can also read and write other file formats, such as Microsoft Word and HTML, by using the File menu.

• New: You can create a new document for any OpenOffice function. When you choose File --> New, you're given the option to create a new text document, spreadsheet, presentation, or other function.

• Edit: This menu provides all the functions you need to modify documents. Functions such as cut, copy, paste, and delete are all there. The functions that are active at any time depend on whether you're editing a document, spreadsheet, or presentation. For example, the cut, copy, and paste options aren't active if you're not editing a document (like when you first start up OpenOffice and haven't opened any files).

You can also track changes, just as you can in Microsoft Word. Choose Edit --> Changes and you can track changes on a character-by-character basis. You can display the changes or keep them hidden from view. When you're satisfied with your edits, you can make the changes permanent and save only the finished document to disk. It's pretty cool.

OpenOffice also provides the Find and Replace function from the Edit menu. The Find and Replace feature enables you to find text strings and either replace them with another string or delete them. You can search forward or backward through a document. You can replace one instance or all instances.

• Spell check: OpenOffice provides a spell checker, of course. You can tell the spell checker to check an entire document by choosing Tools --> Spell Check --> Check. You're prompted to act on each possible spelling error the checker detects.

Alternatively, you can set the spell checker to operate continuously. Choose Tools --> Spellcheck --> AutoSpellCheck to toggle on the real-time spell checker; when it's activated, a check mark appears next to the menu option. The Continuous option tells OpenOffice Writer to check each word you enter and underlines possible misspellings with a squiggly red line. The red line disappears when you successfully correct the mistake.

• View: This menu displays or hides the various menu bars. You can display a document's formatting characters and also increase or decrease the size (zoom in or out) of the text displayed on the screen. The zoom function enables you to make smaller fonts more readable without changing the document.

• Insert: This menu enables you to insert special characters, objects, files, and macros into your documents. Special characters include various symbols (accents and umlauts, for example) that aren't part of the everyday character set, unless you happen to use words like café frequently. Objects include graphics, symbols, and figures. (You can create your own figures with Draw.) You can also insert macros and hyperlinks into your documents.

You can insert tables into documents with any number of rows and columns. OpenOffice can automatically adjust the row height, or you can do it manually. Choose Table from the Insert menu and play around with this feature.

• Tools: From this menu, you can access the spell checker, thesaurus, various OpenOffice configuration settings, and other functions. Tools such as the spell checker are self explanatory.

• Window: This menu enables you to control the look of your desktop. In addition to enabling you to modify and move windows, the menu provides other manipulation capabilities.

• Help: OpenOffice provides pretty good online help services. Many are context-sensitive. If you're editing a text document, click the Help menu to get access to information related to the Writer module.

For example, choose Help --> Help Agent and the Help Agent window appears. The Help Agent provides assistance in several areas of interest to new users, including

• Introduction to Writer: Provides an introduction to the word processor

• Basic tips text documents: Tells you all you ever wanted to know about reading, writing, and printing text documents

• Advanced tips: Extends the preceding basic text document tip to more advanced subjects

• Menus: Describes how all the OpenOffice menus work together

• Toolbars: Describes the toolbars that provide information and shortcuts

• Shortcuts: Describes which key combinations can be used to perform various word processing functions

• New stuff: Describes what's new since the last OpenOffice version

• Support: Displays brief information about getting support from Sun Microsystems