Office suites

Applications for office purposes, such as editing documents and spreadsheets, are good uses for the OpenOffice suite of applications. If you are migrating from a Windows environment, this suite is very similar to Microsoft Office, with similar applications and file formats.

OpenOffice can typically be installed through your distribution's package manager. If not, check the OpenOffice website, here. They should have your distribution and processor type available. OpenOffice comes with applications called "Writer" (documents), "Calc" (spreadsheets), "Base" (database management), "Impress" (presentations), and "Math" (expression editor).

Writer
Writer is the document editor of the OpenOffice suite. If you have used Windows or Mac versions of Microsoft Word, Writer should feel very familiar to you. It has many of the same features and has compatibility with Microsoft Word.

After Writer starts, you may start typing your document. To format text with elements like Bold or Italic, simply highlight the text you would like to format and click the respective buttons.

Calc
Calc is the spreadsheet editor of the OpenOffice suite. If you have used Windows or Mac versions of Microsoft Excel, Calc should feel somewhat familiar to you. It has many of the same features and uses the same concept of cells.