More Linux Goodness: Free Word Processors

So far, the great Linux experiment is going great. I’ve switched from Fedora to PCLinuxOS: The main reason was the native support for my Radeon Card. Thanks, Tasos, for the heads up!

I’ve also been playing with a few Word Processing program.

I’ve already mentioned Open Office, the full featured MS Office killer on the software page. Now however, I can say I grok the things that used to bug me about it. Open office has about a billion and one options to customize the program, page layouts, templates,document style, Etc. Now I get it. Part of the Open Source ethos is that nothing is hidden and the user has total control. Not just over the software, but options in the software. If you want to print on a 4″ by 8″ sheet of paper with .72 inch margins and 1.33 lines spacing, go for it. That’s why you get more options than Word: Because it’s up to you. Duh.

There’s also Abiword and Koffice: I’ve used both before, but I still Prefer Open Office.

A new one I’ve been liking is LyX. LyX is billed as a “What you see is what you mean” Document Processor and it’s kind of a throwback to an earlier Linux. If I get the Gist of Neal Stephenson‘s “In the Beginning …” essay, Command line Text editors such as Emacs and VI came first and were designed for programmers. Flash forward a few years, And Word Processor applications were needed for Unix. The programmers didn’t start over, they just created formatting applications such as LaTex that could take the output of the text editors and turn them into documents.

LyX is the next generation: It uses DocBook formatting packages that contain all the formatting for turning your manuscript into a finished book. Or screenplay, or whatever. Simply pick the document you want to create, and start typing. Voila! What you see is what you mean. Chapter headings look like chapter headings, paragraphs look like paragraphs, pages, margins, fonts and what ever else are automatically taken care of. It’s like typing your manuscript directly onto the printed page.

Also Fun to play with, especially with the Oscars over and Nicholls and Disney fellowships right around the corner is celtx. This program creates scripts in a wide variety of formats: Screenplays, Stage plays, Audio scripts, even novels and stories. But that’s not all. Celtx also has functions for all areas of media pre-production: Storyboards, scene lists and breakdowns, index cards, props. Everything you need to replace cumbersome pen and paper notebooks and get the show on the road. Celtx has even added collaboration and secure web services.

All professional, and all free. give them a shot.