What is Writer?

Writer is the word processor component of OpenOffice.org (OOo). In addition to the usual features of a word processor (spell checking, thesaurus, hyphenation, autocorrect, find and replace, automatic generation of tables of contents and indexes, mail merge, and others), Writer provides these important features:

• Templates and styles

• Powerful page-layout methods (including frames, columns, and tables)

• Embedding or linking of graphics, spreadsheets, and other objects

• Built-in drawing tools

• Master documents, to group a collection of documents into a single document

• Change tracking during revisions

• Database integration, including a bibliography database

• Export to PDF, including bookmarks

• And many more

Styles are central to using Writer. Styles enable you to easily format your document consistently and to change the format with minimal effort. Often, when you format your document in Writer, you are using styles whether you realize it or not. A style is a named set of formatting options. Writer defines several types of styles, for different types of elements: characters, paragraphs, pages, frames, and lists. The use of styles is described in more detail in other chapters in this guide, including “Introduction to Styles†and “Working with Stylesâ€.

The other features of Writer listed above are also covered in detail in other chapters of this guide.