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A word processor is computer software used to compose, format,
edit and print documents. Word processing is one of the earliest
applications for office productivity and the personal computer.
Although early word processors used tag-based markup for document formatting, most modern word processors take advantage of a
graphical user interface to provide WYSIWYG editing, possibly as a front-end to a tag-based system. However for specialised text
processing applications systems like TeX and derivatives are used.
Characteristics
The 'word processing' typically refers to text manipulation functions such as automatic generation of
- batch mailing using a form letter template and an address database (aka mail merging),
- index of keywords and their page numbers,
- table of contents with section titles and their page numbers,
- table of figures with caption titles and their page numbers,
- 'see also' cross referencing with page numbers.
Page number and footnote information is extremely hard to maintain without a word processor because addition or deleting of
text can affect pagination i.e. page numbers can change in each edition. Other word processing functions include spelling and
grammar checking.
Word processors can be distinguished from several other, related forms of software:
Text editor programs were the precursors of word processors. While
offering facilities for composing and editing text, they do not offer direct support for document formatting, but batch document
processing systems such as LaTeX and programs that implement the paged-media extensions
to HTML and CSS
fill this gap. Text editors are now used mainly by programmers and web site
designers for creating and modifying computer programs, and by computer system administrators for creating and editing
configuration files.
Desktop publishing programs, meanwhile, were specifically
designed to allow elaborate layout for publication, but offer only limited support for editing. Typically, desktop publishing
programs allow users to import text that they have written using a text editor or word processor.
The word processor has become a central component of the office applications suite and is increasingly only available in this form, rather than as a
standalone program.
Origin of word processing
The term word processing was devised by IBM in the 1960s, and
originally encompassed all business equipment—including manually operated typewriters—that was concerned with the
handling of text, as opposed to data. Electromechanical paper-tape-based equipment such as the Friden Flexowriter had long
been available; the Flexowriter allowed for operations such as repetitive typing of form letters (with a pause for the operator
to manually type in the variable information). In the sixties it began to be feasible to apply the technology developed for
electronic computers to office automation tasks. IBM's Mag-Card Selectric was an early device of this kind. It allowed editing, simple revision,
and repetitive typing, with a one-line display for editing single lines.
In the early 1970s Lexitron and Vydec introduced pioneering word-processing systems
with CRT screen editing, but the real breakthrough occurred in 1976 with the introduction
of a CRT-based system by Wang Laboratories. This was a true
office machine, affordable by organizations such as medium-sized law firms. It was easily learned and operated by secretarial
staff.
The Wang word processor displayed text two-dimensionally on a CRT screen, and incorporated virtually every fundamental
characteristic of word processors as we know them today. The phrase "word processor" rapidly came to refer to CRT-based machines
similar to Wang's. Numerous machines of this kind emerged, typically marketed by traditional office equipment companies such as
IBM, Lanier, CPT, and NBI. These all, of course, were specialized, dedicated, proprietary systems. Cheap general-purpose
computers were still the domain of hobbyists.
With the rise of personal computers, software-based word processors running on general-purpose commodity hardware gradually
displaced dedicated word processors, and the term came to refer to software rather than hardware. Early word-processing software
was ludicrously clumsy in comparison to dedicated word processors; for example, it required users to memorize semi-mnemonic key
combinations rather than pressing keys labelled "copy" or "bold." The cost differences were compelling, however, and personal
computers and word processing software soon became serious competition for the dedicated machines.
The late 1980s, saw the advent of laser printers, graphic user interfaces (pioneered
by the Xerox Alto and Gypsy word processor), and a "typographic" approach to word processing (WYSIWYG displays with multiple fonts). These were popularized by Microsoft Word on the IBM PC in 1983, and
MacWrite on the Apple Macintosh in 1984; these were probably the first true WYSIWYG word processors to become known to a large
group of users. Dedicated word processors became museum pieces.
Word processing programs
Programs still available and in use
- Hieroglyph, a Russian language word processor with excellent Russian spell checker
Historically important programs
- TJ-2
— one candidate for "first word
processor" (command-based, not WYSIWYG); in use in 1963
- Bravo —
first bitmap-based multifont WYSIWYG word processor, completed at Xerox PARC by
Charles Simonyi and
colleagues in 1974
- Gypsy, 1975
— follow-on to Bravo, by Larry
Tesler and colleagues; graphic user interface, cut-and-paste modeless editing
- IBM DisplayWrite
- Xerox Document
Editor
- MacWrite — free word processor included with early versions of the
Apple Macintosh
- MultiMate
- WordStar
- XyWrite
- EasyWriter—Briefly a leading word processor for the IBM PC, notable
for a) authorship by legendary hacker John Draper ("Cap'n Crunch") and b) having been written in FORTH
- MindWrite
- Magic Wand for CP/M-based computers
See also
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