Even if you don't subscribe to the idea of ditching OpenOffice.org in favor of a Web-based productivity suite like Google Docs or Zoho Docs, you can still put useful cloud services to some practical use.

If you've seen one online word processor--or even a handful of them--you haven't seen them all, not by a longshot. In addition to Google Docs, Zoho Writer, and emerging competitors such as EtherPad, other online offerings you might want to try include AjaxWrite, Writeboard, picoWrite and MonkeyTeX, to name a few.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom that a word processor can’t help you to become a better writer, you can use OpenOffice.org Writer with the Writer's Tools extension to improve your writing skills and make the writing process more efficient.

One of the perqs of being a journalist is that I often hear about software and events before most people. A case in point is Writer's Tools, an extension for OpenOffice.org Writer being developed by my fellow journalist Dimitri Popov, whose articles about macros have taught me most of what I know on the subject.

Every few years, I check in on how OpenOffice.org Writer compares to Microsoft Word. The first comparison came in 2002, the second in 2005. In those two comparisons, OpenOffice.org emerged as superior, not least for its greater stability.

As you know ,you can adjust Openoffice.org to your needs by adding more functionality with the help of extensions. In this article is listed five useful extensions for Openoffice.org with installation guide.

1- Sun Weblog Publisher : The Sun Weblog Publisher allows you to quickly create, edit and publish weblog entries on many popular Blog servers.

Writer’s Tools is a set of utilities designed to help OpenOffice.org users perform a wide range of tasks. Using Writer’s Tools, you can back up documents, look up and translate words and phrases, manage text snippets, and keep tabs on document statistics.

The AuthorSupportTool extension not just adds some random features to OpenOffice.org Writer, it dramatically enhances the word processor's functionality, turning it into a powerful tool for working on research papers and complex documents.

OpenOffice.org Writer is as much a desktop publishing program as a word processor.