Linux for Microsoft Windows Users #5: Simple Number Crunching, Word Processing, & Photo Viewing with the Windows-Like Desktop for Linux

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KEdit

The Linux, K desktop comes with several basic, simple, text editors or lightweight word processors. KEdit is one such text editor. (Please see Figure 3.)

To open KEdit, while in your K desktop, simply click on K > Editors, Text Editor (OpenLinux eDesktop 2.4) or K > Applications > Text Editor (Red Hat Linux 7).

Both the MS Windows Notepad and the KDE KEdit create only text (.txt) files. However, KEdit also has a spell checker. Neither Notepad nor WordPad include a spell checker.

Simple text editors such as Notepad and KEdit do not let you set text attributes such as fonts, font color, font style (regular, bold, italic, etc.), and font size (10pt., 12pt., 20pt., etc.).

In some simple text editors such as KEdit, you can set those attributes for the way text is displayed in the editor. However, when you save the .txt file, the attribute information is not saved. Then when you open that .txt file, it will be displayed in whatever text/font attribute set is active in the program in which you open that .txt file -- not whatever text/font attribute set was used in the text editor when you saved the .txt file.

If you want to control the text/font attribute information that is saved with your text files, then you need to use a text editor that can save files in attribute rich file formats such as RTF (Rich Text Format), HTML (HyperText Markup Language), .doc (MS Word document), XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and so forth.

Rich Text Editors

To open Composer 4.x if you are using OpenLinux eDesktop 2.4, while in your K desktop, simply click on K > Editors > Composer. In Red Hat Linux 7, you can start Netscape Composer 4.x by clicking on K > Internet > Netscape. Then click on Communicator in the Netscape Menu bar and then on Composer.

AbiWord is a rich text editor that comes pre-installed with Red Hat Linux 7. It looks and feels lots like Microsoft Word. You can install AbiWord to other Linux distributions too. For more information about AbiWord, please see AbiWord - A Free, Decent, MS Word Clone for the Linux, MS Windows, & Other Platforms. (Link in the Resources section at the end of this article.)

KPaint

The KDE 1.1.2 applet that comes closest to the MS Windows Accessories Paint program is KPaint. You can open it by clicking on K > Graphics > Paint. Please see Figure 4.

Figure 4. KPaint.

KPaint is an exception. Although it looks lots like the MS Windows Accessory menu Paint program, KPaint lacks an undo feature and a paint-can tool. There are better Linux drawing and graphics programs. But that's another story. (KPaint version 0.4.3 is the version included with KDE 1.1.2. There is a newer version of KPaint included with KDE 2.x).

KView

The image viewer that comes with the MS Windows Accessories menu is Imaging for Windows from Kodak. KView is the comparable imaging applet that comes with KDE. You can open KView by clicking on K > Graphics > Image Viewer. Please see Figure 5.

KView does not look or feel much like Imaging for Windows. However, you can do pretty much the same basic image viewing and basic image editing with KView that you can do with Imaging for Windows. Unfortunately, KView lacks an undo feature.

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