Let's switch to the end of the toolbar, and notice that the options there including providing a paragraph background - which is good for highlighting a paragraph or several paragraphs of text, in colours that you choose. You can also highlight text (like you would with a highlighter and paper!), and change the font colours all with the icons there.
Aligning text by indenting it is also another feature available as part of the object toolbar. Left/right alignment of text is provided, and if text is already entered and you want to left-align it, selection of text (or having the cursor at the paragraph) must happen first, before text is indented. Those were just quick controls. To get full control, using the Format menu is ideal. Controls are more varied here.
Styles
Consistency throughout a document is important - it was earlier said that writing books using OpenOffice.org is possible. So there must be a way to handle long and large documents in a consistent fashion, with similar fonts for headings, sub-headings, text, and other attributes within a document.
OpenOffice.org includes a powerful feature known as styles, and this is accessed via the Stylist (get this by hitting the F11 key, or clicking its icon on the main toolbar). Notice the floating window, which is most likely active at the "Default" style. By right-clicking on the style, there are options to modify the style, or create new custom ones.
By going to the modify option, the style can be customized via many varying attributes including spacing, alignment, font, emphasis, colour and many more. Once suitable styles have been pre-defined in the document, they can be used on existing text just by selection, and double-clicking on the style name. Just a little bit more...
Now that the gist of the Writer package has been covered, there's just a little more to know. Writer has a built-in spell checker. This can be accessed via:
Tools --> Spellcheck
The option to auto-spellcheck means that while typing, Writer will dynamically check your spelling, and if it detects an error, it will output a red-line at the bottom of the misspelled word. Keep in mind that the spell checking is based on the current language that is in use. This can be changed via:
Tools --> Options --> Language Settings --> Languages
Accessing word counts in the document is different to most other packages on a default install of OpenOffice.org (this can differ with several Linux distributions' offerings):
File --> Properties --> Statistics
It is under the Statistics tab that the word counts and other relevant document counts are based. On certain vendor modified distributions of OpenOffice.org, going to the Tools --> Word Count menu will allow the Statistics dialogue box to be displayed automatically.
The AutoCorrect/AutoFormat (Tools --> AutoCorrect/AutoFormat) options have replacement tables (so that CDs really are valid, and will not be changed to Cd, for instance). There are also word completion options (very useful, as the software starts thinking for you) and settings to make them more user-friendly.
The Navigator is a yet another useful tool (get this via hitting the F5 key or clicking its icon on the main toolbar), especially when dealing with larger documents. It supports jumping to bookmarks, notes, any particular object, and even creates a table-of-contents on the fly, based on the styles that are being used!
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Tutorial: Using the OpenOffice.org Suite
1. Getting around the package
2. Writer
3. Calc
4. Impress
