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In case you don’t know, Open Office is an incredibly powerful office suite, at least as good as the MS Office suite. It’s also free. Google “OpenOffice” to download it from the OpenOffice site. (Note: if you have a Mac, try neooffice. It works much better on a Mac, but it’s basically the same suite.)
Select the Text document OpenOffice menu option to display the OO word processor.
This word processor won’t type your letters automatically, but it does have a built-in letter wizard to help you get the basic structural elements right.
select File > Wizards > Letter in the menu to display the Letter Wizard. (Also note the fax, calendar, presentation, and web page wizards!)
Select one of the following Font Options: Business Letter, Formal Personal Letter, Personal Letter.
The first two letters come with three layout page options: Elegant, Modern, Office.
The personal letter comes with the following layout page options: Bottle, Mail, Marine, Red Line.
Once you select your font and page layout style, click Next to display the…
display of printed items allows you to include (or exclude) the following lettering elements: logo, return address in the envelope window, subject line, salutation, fold marks, courtesy closure, and footer.
Click Next and you will get the…
Recipient and sender screen allows you to enter the sender’s address and the recipient’s address.
Click Next to…
The footer screen allows you to type any footer text you want, with two additional options: you can include page numbers and/or include the footer only on the second and subsequent pages, but not on the first page.
Click Next…
The Name and Location screen allows you to attach a name to your template and save it to any file you want on your computer so you can easily upload it and use it for other letters in the future.
And finally, after you finish making the right decisions for your template, the Letter Wizard will ask you how to proceed.
You can then go ahead and create a letter from the template you just created or make manual changes to the template. For example, you can replace all the icons and images in the template with your own custom designed logos and images, etc.
A perfect letter assistant of a fully equipped office suite that costs you zero, zero, nothing.
Note: You can open all your MS WORD documents within OpenOffice without problems and when you’re done reading or editing them, save them back as MS Office documents.
I’ve been using OpenOffice (on Windows and Linux machines) and NeoOffice (on a MacBook) for the past 3 years without any problems. (This same article, for example, is written with the NeoOffice word processor.)
Advance. Make your day! It could be a very bright one that costs you nothing.