A Quick Start with Common Linux Programs in Font

Generate Code39 in Font A Quick Start with Common Linux Programs

The remainder of this chapter outlines a handful of the programs listed in Table 11-1. My goal is to give you a head start in using each program, pointing out where most of the main functions can be found. You ll find more details about the The GIMP image editor, multimedia tools, and office applications in Parts 5 and 6 of this book. Keep in mind that Linux doesn t aim to be an exact clone of Windows. Some of the programs will work in a similar way to Windows software, but that s not true of all of them. Because of this, it s very easy to get frustrated early on when programs don t seem to work quite how you want or respond in strange ways. Some programs might hide functions in what seem like illogical places compared with their Windows counterparts. Some patience is required, but it will eventually pay off as you get used to Linux.

OpenOffice.org is an entire office suite for Linux that was built from the ground up to compete with Microsoft Office. Because of this, you ll find much of the functionality of Microsoft Office is replicated in OpenOffice.org, and the look and feel are also similar. The major difference is that OpenOffice.org is open source and therefore free of charge.

OpenOffice.org Writer (Applications Office OpenOffice.org2 Writer), shown in Figure 11-1, is the word processor component. As with Microsoft Word, it s fully WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), so you can quickly format text and paragraphs. This means the program can be used for elementary desktop publishing, and pictures can be easily inserted (using the Insert menu).

Figure 11-1. OpenOffice.org Writer Writer s toolbars provide quick access to the formatting tools, as well as to other common functions. The vast majority of menu options match those found in Word. Right-clicking the text itself also offers quick access to text-formatting tools. A number of higher-level functions are provided, such as mail merge and spell-checking, (found on the Tools menu). You can perform spell-checking on the fly, with incorrect words underlined in red as you type. As with all OpenOffice.org packages, Writer is fully compatible with Microsoft Office files, so you can save and open .doc files. Just select the file type in the Save As dialog box. The only exception is password-protected Word files, which cannot be opened. You can also export documents as PDF files (using File Export As PDF), so they can be read on any computer that has Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. OpenOffice.org Writer is covered in more detail in 23.

As with most of the packages that form the OpenOffice.org suite, Calc (Applications Office OpenOffice.org2 Calc) does a good impersonation of its Windows counterpart, Microsoft Excel, both in terms of powerful features and also the look and feel, as you can see in Figure 11-2. However, it doesn t run Excel Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros. Instead, Calc (and all OpenOffice.org programs) uses its own macro language called OpenOffice.org Basic (for more information, see http://development.openoffice.org).

Figure 11-2. OpenOffice.org Calc Calc has a vast number of mathematical functions. To see a list, choose Insert Function. The list includes a brief explanation of each function to help you get started. Just as with Excel, you can access the functions via the toolbar (by clicking the Function Wizard button), or you can enter them directly into cells by typing an equal sign and then the formula code. Calc is intelligent enough to realize when formula cells have been moved and to recalculate accordingly. It will even attempt to calculate formulas automatically and can work out what you mean if you type something like sales + expenses as a formula. As you would expect, Calc also provides automated charting and graphing tools (under Insert Chart). In Figure 11-2, you can see an example of a simple chart created automatically by the charting tool. You can format cells using the main toolbar buttons, or automatically apply user-defined styles (choose Format Styles and Formatting).