With a little help from the ODF plugin, Microsoft Office can open up documents saved in the free Open Document format. A short test reveals just how well it works.

Using drawing tools to manually create graphs and diagrams can be a slow and convoluted process. The Graphviz toolbox offers a faster way. Based on a short text with the information for the graph, Graphviz quickly generates a neat drawing.

Linux has had the ability to display PDF documents for many years, but it lacked an editing tool until now: enter Cabaret Stage.

If you need to lay out a text document, you can opt for a WYSIWYG application, like OpenOffice, or a genuine layout system such as TeX. TeXmacs combines the advantages of both approaches: premium document quality and intuitive controls.

More is not always better, especially at the command line. Lean text editors such as nano, JOE, and ee fit Linux novices and experts alike.

How would you like write text using whatever text editor you like and then publish the results in a variety of formats, including (X)HTML, MoinMoin wiki, LaTeX, and SGML? txt2tags allows you to write once and publish
anywhere.

While Firefox 3 basks in the glory of its download records, version 3 of Thunderbird is not yet complete.

The Lightning add-on lets users upgrade their Mozilla Thunderbird email client and turn it into a convenient, versatile groupware product.