Notices

So if you've already spent a small fortune on the n900, you probably don't want to pay anything more for an accessible word processing app. that both Views AND Edits docs., like the fee for the Word to Go app. And though it looks like there is one free word processing app, it doesn't look like you could open & edit word docs. w/ it, right? BUT if I already have the small Portable Word 2003 program on a computer, could I copy that to the n900 and somehow use it? Or would that take a high degree of programming savvy? I guess the same question goes for Portable Excel. Thank you.

Nothing you already have will likely work on the N900 purely due to the difference in CPU, never mind the fundamentally different OSes.

You can try Abiword, which is in the repositories. Last I tried it was able to open Word docs, but that was a while ago (and not on the N900.)

Abiword seemed fine to me last I tried it.

It still strikes me as funny that people are thinking of doing actual word processing with that tiny screen and keyboard. My thought is, if your job is at stake, you might consider something bigger.It would be sad if you got a reputation for sloppiness because you used a teensy phone to do important work.

well for some reason I can't find abiword. it's either in extras or extras-testing, right?

abiword is in extras-devel.
Be careful! Extras devel is evil. It can really cause problems with your device. disable the repo after installation if you don't know what you are doing! There also non optified packages around there (they need a lot of space at the wrong partition and cause problems).

By the way:
There is also freoffice (Koffice) and it is not in extras-devel. It can also handle presentations and spreadsheets.

Used the N900, E71 and other PDAs for important passages of text. Emails and documents normally final edit of major documents is done on a larger device. But the amount of words i have created while travelling or wait for trains or buses which would have been lost time is huge.

Also editing is sometimes easier done when relaxed and far easier to pull out my N900 and read and edit a passage of text than power up a laptop for a two-five mintue burst of work which maybe interruppted at any time ie when waiting for a mate down the pub or waiting for the takeaway collection to be ready..

Open Office on Easy Debian works pretty well.

I haven't used it for extended periods of time but it's has a full Word processing and Spreadsheet software.

I second that, works very well for me although I mostly use it to view files, and not write stuff...

I really like the ability to convert any file into a PDF... it is VERY handy.

Freoffice works fine for me for small-time editing of documents, although it's been mainly on the spreadsheet side. And I think it just got an upgrade to the editing functions.

ok, thanks for all the advice. the big Debian app, which I assume is needed for Easydebian, looks enormous. So I think I'll first try Freoffice/koffice, But I can't find it in either extras or extras-testing, and flexxxv says it is Not in extras-devel. Where is it located?

thank you!