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On occasion you may have to produce a document on your Debian machine. Just like in Windows, this is a piece of cake; whether by whichever program. However, what happens when you want to send this document, attached in an email, to your Windows using friends? Will they be able to read it? Can they even open it?
Fear not - this "task" is ridiculously easy. It requires no learning, no software upgrades or replacements, no extra memory...Sit tight, coffee beckons...
OK. You need to send a "newsletter" to all of your Girl Scout moms. For the past 5 years you have done this, it's a no-brainer and you never for a moment stopped to consider whether you could accomplish this task in Linux. Well, you are asking for trouble with blind assumptions, however, you are astute in recognizing that if the Linux crowd really wanted to supplant Microsoft control, or at least play hard in its arena, than they (it) would have to make damned sure that regular users could keep on keeping on with relatively minor disturbances. As a Linux advocate, programmer, whatever - when you spout your fan-boy rhetoric - you had better be able to back it up.
When I spout Linux goodness I play it down, with a possible. I say things like, "yeah - you can do that, and you can do this, too..." And they say, "No!" All dumbfounded. Then I say, "Yeah".
But that's never where I want a conversation about Linux going. Once they have asked, and I've tried to answer, succinctly, whether Linux can do a thing - we move right around that into some other topic. Talking to people about Linux can be a pain in the ass. Especially relatives. I leave that to the boisterous.
But this thing with documents - let's do that. OK - you go open or create a document. I like to use gedit or another text editor, but if you open Open Office (writer, I think) or AbiWord you're good. Now, we're just going to do this, so goto File - Save As and when that box opens, choose your File Type, choose to save it as a Word (XP, 97, etc) document.  Now you can attach this file to your outgoing email and your Windows friends, recipients will be able to see your document.
Listen, why stop there? Why keep saving documents as *.doc files? Why not save it as an *.html file, a*.txt file, or even a *.pdf file? You noticed when you saved your document a moment ago that there were many choices in your list. Well, have at it.
With basically any program that can print in Linux, you can print to a *.pdf document. Now - that's some functionality. A *.pdf doc is the same no matter what's rendering it. You can always choose to produce any number of documents with your exceptional and free operating system, Linux (Debian), and the terrific open source (or, other) programs that come with it.
If you've continued reading to here - you may stop. This article is over. You may have noticed that I wasted 9 paragraphs without saying much at all. It's all in the wrist. Happy Computing machiner 29 Nov 05
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