I'm actually using OpenOffice Writer
I've probably written a dozen or more times about how I think that OpenOffice is the killer app of free, open-source software, and is the software suite that most worries the folks at Microsoft while empowering more and more regular people every day ... but that I have little call to use it myself.
That has changed.
Since I've been writing a weekly print column for the Los Angeles Daily News called Tech Talk (on Page 2 of the B section on Saturdays), our editorial production system likes to see files in Microsoft Word's .doc format.
And I've been generating those files with OpenOffice 2.4's Writer application.
My "requirements" for a word-processing application are pretty minimal:
I like to see typographical "smart" quotes. OpenOffice does that.
Easily accessible word count. No problem there.
And on my Gateway Solo 1450 (1.3 GHz Celeron, 1GB RAM) under Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, OpenOffice 2.4 starts quickly and runs quickly.
I still use the Gedit text editor to work on things like blog posts when I'm offline, or the Geany editor when I have it installed (which I have yet to do in this particular Ubuntu setup), but anything I've ever had to do in Microsoft Word — which for a regular writer is ... just writing — I can do in the no-cost-to-me OpenOffice.
A project sponsored by Sun Microsystems, OpenOffice also has spreadsheet, presentation, database, drawing and mathematical-display applications. There are versions for Windows, and most Linux and BSD systems.
And the now-in-beta OpenOffice 3.0 now works without the addition of X11 in the Mac's OS X. All that means is that you really don't need to pony up for Microsoft Office on the Mac — or any other platform — ever again. You don't have to pay for upgrades ever again, either.
Everybody from students to office workers to professional writers can do everything they need to do in OpenOffice.
Along with Firefox, it's the best thing ever to happen for you and me — the computer user who hates to be taken for a ride by huge software companies.
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Steven Rosenberg aims to learn what he does not know. He writes about it here.
Steven Rosenberg aims to learn what he does not know. He writes about it here.
Abiword is what I have chosen, although it will not do your desired smart quotes. But it is a smooth tool and getting better every version.
When I started using Abiword, it was extemely buggy, as was Koffice. Now, they are both serious contenders.