Getting OpenOffice.org

If you're running Ubuntu (desktop installation), you don't need to do anything to get OpenOffice.org. It's already behind Applications > Office menu.

If you're not running, you can find OpenOffice.org for your platform at OpenOffice.org. Different Linux distributions often provide OpenOffice.org either by default or it can be easily downloaded from their repository.

Starting OpenOffice.org

We will use OpenOffice.org 2 Writer but other OpenOffice.org 2 products work about the same way.

If you just downloaded and installed OpenOffice.org, you might get a dialog asking your personal details allowing you to insert them or just skip. It's up to you if you want to register yourself as OpenOffice.org user.

Open OpenOffice.org 2 Writer by selecting Applications > Office > OpenOffice.org Writer

OpenOffice.org 2 Writer will start. It may take a while.

You can now open a document or write your own. It doesn't matter what you write. You can include rich text (bold, italic, underline, different fonts and colours), pictures... etc. After you are done your document, follow this tutorial to export is as PDF.

Exporting document as PDF

This is the easiest step. If you want it to be easy, it will be easy. If you want experimental settings, you get them too.

The easy way:

Click the icon next to printer (left side). There's some red and white color (colors from Adobe's logo) and text "PDF".

Then you get a dialog:

Select the place you want your document will be exported. Then click Save

The experimental way:

Go to File > Export as PDF

You get a dialog with few settings you can change. I think you figure your way out there.