Page layout... sheesh...  

Almost every text on Linux I've ever had to wade through had extensive 
chapters on using Linux to prepare text for publication.  Console-based Linux 
is just chock-full of tools to do page layout.  These are all from the days 
when your professor was spending the time he should have put into class 
preparation into trying to write the Great American Textbook using a line 
editor on the local mainframe.

Many of these are still actually the base software that publishers use to 
prepare the text for press, so you may be a step ahead.

Given that, you should be able to get by, but I don't really know where the 
process has gone since Linux added a GUI.