gedit (gnome edit) a simple effective editing app ,just text. If that is
what you are after.
Suggest you try it . If not already in your system : sudo apt-get install
gedit

If you click on the Dash and type: text
two programs will appear. Gedit is the one you want.

There are several free "Ubuntu Manuals" online. If you pick one and browse it,
you will find it a lot easier to use Ubuntu. In many ways Ubuntu is like
Windows, but in some ways it is almost the opposite. For example, I returned a
wireless adapter because the driver disk did not include anything for Linux. If
I had just plugged it in to my computer, it would have worked.

http://ubuntu-manual.org/

www.addictivetips.com/.../15-ubuntu-text-editors-grab-your-\
favorite/

I will check out the others too. I'm getting an update message right now
and will be back with some dumb questions after I get that done and click
around a few more hours.

There is no shortage of text editors from the basic like nano to more
advanced like Kate or Kwrite. Gedit is basic, but with a GUI. Each person
has differing needs which is why there are so many. You could also look at
Gnote which is Tomboy without Mono (avoid this if you can). It has wiki
capabilities. There is also Leafpad (simple), Scribes (more advanced), Zim
(advanced with wikis) and Basket which is KDE's equivalent of Gnote.

For general purpose I recommend Kate. I use it almost every day. I also
like Scribes which is GNOME's answer to Kwrite.

If Gedit doesn't quite do all you want then there's Kate ( KDE
Advanced Text Editor ) which has all the bells and whistles any text
editing program may wish for <lol> If not running Kubuntu then you'll
be asked to add a lot of the KDE runtime packages, not a problem and
won't get in the way or want you to switch to the KDE desktop :-)