Over twenty years open office has made a giant leap in software industry with its new applications and add on facilities. Some of the included applications are Writer, Calc, Impress, Base, Draw and Math. The main application of open office that is Writer is discussed here. Writer is the Word processor component used for typing, editing, storing, text documents with desired features. This is similar to word processor and word perfect. Writer is capable of opening, using and saving documents in a number of formats, including the open document format, doc, docx etc.
Writer can also export the files to Portable Document Format. The various features of Writer includes Templates and styles, Page-layout methods, like frames, rows, columns, charts and tables, embedding of graphics, spreadsheets, and other objects, in built drawing tools, Master documents used to group a cluster of documents into a single, Change tracking, Database integration, with a bibliography database, exporting files to PDF, including all bookmarks, mail merging options, formula or equation editor, scripter, indexing, Auto correct and auto complete. Also there are various limitations in the writer.
Some of them include Dictionary requires the installation of separate extension, lack of "normal" or "draft view" which is found in all other word processors, where paper margins and other aspects of the layout are hidden, cannot view in a split window, cannot rotate images, not able to open multiple documents in single window, not flexible outline numbering options. The writer software can also create and edit web applications. This also supports other formats like rich text, Microsoft pocket word, star office, lotus software, Quattro pro etc. In this article Writer which is one of the applications of open office is discussed. Also the limitations and features of the software are obviously explained in a nut shell.