Email and instant messages shoot back and forth between people these days. Unglamorous, plain old boring business documents, however, remain the stalwart of legally binding communication in the business world. It's changing, but many fields still require printed and/or signed material for day to day operations. Business letters, reports and brochures all need to be produced quickly and efficiently.

As Linux is brought into service in small and medium sized companies, desktop pilots often wonder how they will ever get off the ground without proprietary word processing applications like Word. "Can I still do basic business letters with Linux?" And "Will our old Word docs work with Linux?", they ask.

The answer to both questions is a resounding "You betcha" with OpenOffice.org Writer.

OpenOffice.org Writer is the premier word processing program for Linux. With it, you can write documents, import/export Word files, or even PDF a colleague. In short, Writer will handle just about any documentation load in your normal business office. And it's Open Source (no licensing headaches) to boot.

Let's get a quick idea of how Writer works before you solo.

OpenOffice.org Writer is a comprehensive Open Source word processing program for Linux. The layout and function is very similar to other proprietary word processors, under Windows like MS Word and Word Perfect. The program is remarkably easy to use, if you've used any of the other modern text editors, regardless of platform. Writer has a main screen that is used for entering and viewing your document with tool bars across the top and left sides. Selections are generally done through drop-down menus.

Want to send one of your clients a letter with an invoice? You could simply start up OpenOffice.org, click File, New, Text Document and just start typing. You'll have to set margins, place the address lines, enter the date and so on. An easier way is to switch to AutoPilot and follow its route to your business letter destination.

Start OpenOffice.org, then click on File, AutoPilot, letter. The AutoPilot will lead you through various screens where you to select whether you want personal or business, along with the style of the letter. It also lets you input the sender and recipient address, margins, pagination, etc. All the values are typed into a "fill in the blank" style interface and can be saved as a template or form letter file for later use.

One particular area of interest might be the ability for Writer to grab data from a database for the recipient information and stick it into your form letters. Obviously, you should have address information in a database somewhere. It could be a Mozilla address book, an LDAP server directory, a spreadsheet, a dbase file or what have you.

The way it works is that you create your form letter, then define your database location while you are in the AutoPilot session. After you've selected Create, the letter will appear on the screen with your selected field names. You can edit you letter or move the fields and text around to your heart's content. When you're happy with the letter, just hit print. You'll be asked if you want to print a form letter. Answer Yes. At that point you can simply click on a record in the little database window to select your recipient.

One thing to watch. When the question of "Do you want to print field names?" comes up, answer "No." Otherwise, you'll print the names of the database fields on your paper, instead of the recipients information. Other than that it works great and can save you lots of work.

Before you leave your form letter, you'll also need an envelope.

Envelopes are nearly as easy to do as a letter itself.

While still in your letter, click on Insert, Envelope. The envelope wizard will let you choose a database to use and what text you want to appear as the sender. Fill those in and then select New Doc. If you choose Insert, your envelope will show up at the beginning of your letter. I always thought it was a little awkward to save the envelope and letter that way, but the choice is yours.

Next, you can go ahead and print. The Mail Merge panel will again appear and let you choose your recipient. Highlight who you want the envelope to go to and away you go.

You may have to fiddle around with the envelope feeder on your laser printer, to get it oriented correctly. On my antique HP Laser Jet 6P, I'd flip open the front cover and stick in the envelope. I'd also open the back cover so the envelope went right through the printer without curving around into the paper tray on the top. You might also need to switch to the laser jet type envelopes. Regular envelopes tend to seal themselves shut, under the heat of the laser printing process. Anyway, once you get the envelope going through the printer correctly, make a little note and paste it on the top, so you don't have to waste a bunch the next time you print.

We've covered the basics for a business letter and envelope. Let's now turn our attention to typing up some simple columnar reports. Everybody needs reports.

To do a simple three-, four-, or five-column report in OpenOffice.org Writer, we'll again turn to the AutoPilot.

If you didn't configure JAVA when you loaded OpenOffice.org, that's OK, because the AutoPilot will check for you. When I first built my system, SuSE Linux 8.0 Pro loaded a JAVA Software Developer Kit and runtime environment, by default. You can find a runtime environment by using the whereis command. On a command line type:

whereis java

My JAVA directory turned out to be /usr/lib. The AutoPilot will ask for the directory. Type it in and then restart OpenOffice.org.

If it turns out that you don't have JAVA, you'll have to load it on your machine before you can use the reports in Writer.

With Writer and JAVA working, click File, AutoPilot. Just like in the mail merge for the letter, you'll need to select a database to use. For my story I selected my Mozilla addresses as the database source and personal address book for the table. After, that you just need to go through the report wizard and fill out your selections for field labels, grouping, field sorting and layout theme. If your database changes periodically, you can also choose to generate your report dynamically. In other words, whenever you print a new report, it will reflect the most current data in the database.

When you're all finished with your selections select Create and your data will be nicely formatted into neat columns with labels and everything. You can then edit or print the report.

Letters, envelopes and reports are cool, but you might need some advertising to help your business get going. Why not do a neat little tri-fold brochure?

Brochures put your business message, services and company info out there for everybody to see. The traditional tri-fold brochure is easy and nice because it will fit into standard number 10 envelope. Mock up some brochures, slip them into some envelopes (using your address database, as discussed earlier) and mount a do-it-yourself mail marketing campaign.

This time you'll need to be a little more creative, but not much more.

Start by clicking File, New, Text Document. A blank sheet will appear. Then go into Format, Columns. A column selection panel will appear that let's you configure your columns on the tri-fold. Set the column number to 3 and un-click AutoWidth. Next, set the width for all three columns to 2.80 inches. Set the spacing (which will be between the columns) to .80 inches.

Finally, set Apply to to Current Selection. All these measurements assume a landscape oriented (make sure you set it under Format, Page) page of 8.5 by 11.00 inches. If you are using different sized paper or want to do a bi-fold (two panel) or quad-fold (four panel) brochure, you'll have to experiment to find the best looking column width and spacing. Click OK when you're finished and that's it for the setup of the panels.

Now the real work begins... you'll have to put information in the panels that reflect your company's business message, services and contact information. Here is a list of things, I've used, to get you started.

• Page 1 - left hand panel is my Promise panel. That's where I tell the client about my writing skills, the value of my service and my promise to do a great job
  
• Page 1 - middle panel is my Contact panel. It lists my name in bold letters, my title, a subtitle and my company address, phone, email address, web site, etc.
  
• Page 1 - right panel is the front cover. Get creative and make an clean, eye catching design.
  
• Page 2 - left panel is my Client/Experience panel. Things like "You can call on me to do..." and some bio information can go here.
  
• Page 2 - middle panel is for the advantages that I provide. In my case it would be "A freelance writer can:..." or "Advantages of using a freelance writer are:..."
  
• Page 2 - right panel is for my consulting agreement, terms and other information the client might need to make a decision when contracting jobs with me.

Printing a brochure is a little labor intensive because it happens on two sides. For a small number, I open the front of my laser printer and feed in a single sheet. When it comes out the back I flip it over and feed it in again a second time. For large numbers, you'll want to print page one, then turn the copies over and put them back in the feeder for page 2. Just print one side at a time. It can be tricky, so go slow and be patient.

Lot's of examples exist on the web and there are many books that discuss the design of brochures. The hard part is figuring out what information best reflects your company. That is something, only you will know. I'd be happy to assist, of course. Just send me your contact information, I'll mail/email you my brochure and then we can put one together, together.

One last technical note, you'll want to experiment with importing and exporting MS Word documents. Use File, Open and grab a .doc formatted file. There are some minor differences, when converting from MS Word to OpenOffice.org and back. But the MS Word format isn't always consistent between versions, either. Be aware of the differences and you'll be fine.

Now you're ready to use Linux and OpenOffice.org Writer to make business letters, envelopes, reports and brochures. There are many more wizards, templates and features to explore, with Writer. We've only scratched the surface. A complete description of using Writer can be found in Solveig Haugland's book OpenOffice 1.0 Resource Kit. It's available at major book retailers and all major topics in OpenOffice.org are covered, including Writer, Calc, Draw, Impress, and more. It's the definitive guide to OpenOffice.org.

Rob Reilly is a freelance Technology Writer and Speaker. He's particularly interested in stories about Linux on the desktop/laptop, recycling with Linux and portable computing. He's currently developing seminars on Linux presentation technology, "road warrior" techniques and business web basics. Send him a note or visit his web site at http://home.earthlink.net/~robreilly.

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