LibreOffice Writer is the open-source word processor

Word processor

A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....

 component of the LibreOffice

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is a free and open source office suite developed by The Document Foundation as a fork of OpenOffice.org. It is largely compatible with other major office suites, including Microsoft Office, and available on a variety of platforms...

 software package

Software package (installation)

In package management systems, which are commonly used with Linux-based operating systems, a package is a specific piece of software which the system can install and uninstall....

 and is a fork

Fork (software development)

In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a legal copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software...

 of OpenOffice.org Writer

OpenOffice.org Writer

OpenOffice.org Writer is the word processor component of the OpenOffice.org software package. Writer is a word processor similar to Microsoft Word and Corel's WordPerfect, with some of their features....

. Writer is a word processor similar to Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...

 and Corel's WordPerfect

WordPerfect

WordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...

, with some of their features.

As with the entire LibreOffice suite, Writer can be used across a variety of platforms, including Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

, Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

, FreeBSD

FreeBSD

FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...

 and Solaris

Solaris Operating System

Solaris is a Unix operating system originally developed by Sun Microsystems. It superseded their earlier SunOS in 1993. Oracle Solaris, as it is now known, has been owned by Oracle Corporation since Oracle's acquisition of Sun in January 2010....

.

Features

Writer is capable of opening and saving documents in a number of formats, including the OASIS Open Document Format 1.1

OpenDocument

The Open Document Format for Office Applications is an XML-based file format for representing electronic documents such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents....

 (its default format), Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...

's DOC, DOCX, RTF

Rich Text Format

The Rich Text Format is a proprietary document file format with published specification developed by Microsoft Corporation since 1987 for Microsoft products and for cross-platform document interchange....

 and XHTML

XHTML

XHTML is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely-used Hypertext Markup Language , the language in which web pages are written....

.

Writer provides a number of features, such as the inclusion of a word completion

Word completion

Word completion is a common feature in web browsers and similar text entry contexts. When a user begins the entry of a frequently-used word, the computer automatically completes it, or proposes a list of choices....

 mechanism for predictive writing and the ability to export to PDF format.

Features include::

• Templates and styles
• A grammar checker is included by default since release 3.3
• Support for autofilter per sheet: It is now possible to set autofilter per sheet without manually creating named database ranges prior to setting autofilter
• Page-layout methods, including frames, columns, and tables
• Embedding or linking of graphics, spreadsheets, and other objects
• Built-in drawing tools
• Java text rendering replaced by native text rendering which greatly improves readability
• The preexisting Java dialogs have been replaced with simpler native dialog boxes.
• Support Color and line styles for the columns and footnote separator lines. This is improving the compatibility of LibreOffice with ODF
• Master documents—to group a collection of documents into a single document
• Change tracking during revisions
• The ability to import and edit PDF files as of version 3.4
• Significantly improved file compatibility when dealing with Microsoft Word as compared to openoffice
• Database integration, including a bibliography database
• Export to PDF, including bookmarks
• MailMerge
• Equation editor (LibreOffice Math)
• Scriptable and Remote Controllable via the UNO API
  Universal Network Objects
  In computing, Universal Network Objects is the component model used in the OpenOffice.org application suite of programs. It is interface-based and designed to offer interoperability between different programming languages, object models and machine architectures, on a single machine, within a LAN...
  
  
• Indexing
• AutoCorrect
• AutoComplete
• Selection of non-consecutive items in Add Mode.

Versions for LibreOffice Writer include the following:

Year Released	Version	Comments
2011-06-16	3.3.3	Import of MS Works documents now possible. SVG import into Writer is now possible. Many Wordperfect import improvements.
2011-06-03	3.4	New gradient / drop-shadow to highlight writer pages, with configurable colors in the options. Text rendering has been improved as text is now drawn via Cairo with the same subpixeling options as other Cairo-using apps.

See also

• Comparison of office suites
• Comparison of word processors
  Comparison of word processors
  -General information:This table provides general information about selected word processors.-Characteristics:This table gives characteristics of each word processor.-Operating System Compatibility:...
  
  
• List of word processors

External links

• Writer home page
• LibreOffice Writer Guide