So what actually is this? Reading through it, the description sounds like it's basically notepad? Why would I use this instead of notepad except for some sort of aesthetic of working in the terminal?
replies(3):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_processor
I think a lot of people have forgotten that “word processors” were originally mechanical devices, and then electrical and electronic devices, before ultimately becoming software.
Difference between Word Processor and text editor is in WYSIWYG mode of operation. At least for most of people.
Like my Sciter.Notes (https://notes.sciter.com) has better chances to be named as Word Processor as its primary mode is WYSIWYG. It also supports WordGrinder alike mode (Markdown editing) so users can chose what mode is more suitable for particular document type.
That’s a very modern perspective. In the history of computing, WYSIWYG word processing appears only in recent history. For far longer, the requirement was simply “processing words”. How they were displayed was irrelevant.
Indeed, it used to be considered such a computationally expensive task that entire systems were developed exclusively for word processing that did not have any other general purpose computing functionality. They were usually controlled through terminals which did not have graphics capability.
A useful taxonomy might include:
* text editors: produce and edit text, saved to files
* formatting languages: inline, interlinear and/or out-of-band formatting to define semantic and/or visual layout
* word processors: text editors with an integrated formatting system with the ability to integrate some graphic elements, producing either printable documents or a specialized save format. Most likely to offer WYSIWYG-ish as the primary interface.
* publishing systems: formatting systems designed to create templates and apply them to produce repeatable-but-tweakable documents from multiple inputs and updated contents
As someone who used DOS-based word processors like WordStar, and before that, a Brother word processor that looked like a typewriter with a two-line display that let you edit a whole document, funky inline formatting symbols and all, and then hit "print" when you were done, I think this statement ignores a lot of history.
<graybeard> No, that's the difference between a page layout system and a word processor. </graybeard>
More seriously, word processor is to the tuple (natural language, text editor) as IDE is to the tuple (programming language, text editor). WYSIWYG is a (very, now) common feature of word processors like visual designers are a common feature of an GUI development focussed IDEs, but its not the definition of the category.
> word processor, computer program used to write and revise documents, compose the layout of the text, and preview on a computer monitor how the printed copy will appear. The last capability is known as “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG; pronounced wi-zē-wig).
and
> Before word processors were available, text-editing programs offered the basic editing capabilities of word processing but without WYSIWYG. WYSIWYG depends on high-resolution bit-mapped computer graphics displays.
So encyclopaedical definition of WP puts WYSIWYG as definitive characteristic of WP from TE.
"Before word processors were available, text-editing programs offered the basic editing capabilities of word processing but without WYSIWYG."
There are many, many, many of us who not only have heard of but actually once used word processors—programs or even devices that were called "word processors" as such—years before GUI, WYSIWYG word processors came on the scene.
This is the article you're referencing:
https://www.britannica.com/technology/word-processor
but the corresponding Wikipedia pages have more of the history of word processing, and an image search for "word processor" will turn up plennnnnnnty of images of things that are emphatically not WYSIWYG.
When the Mac (and later Windows) came out, desktop publishing became mainstream, with WYSIWIG fonts and graphics and fancy configurable layout.
For a little while in the early nineties, I remember the press talking about some programs like MS Word for Windows as being “Word Publishing”, in that they were word processors with some of the features of desktop publishing software.
Of course it's 2023, and Encyclopedia Britannica is not exactly in its best years, or the best source for canonical IT information.
Unlike Encyclopedia Britannica editors, here we have people who wrote, sold, and have used word processors without WYSIWYG in the 80s and even 90s, and they were absolutely known as word processors. In fact the first WYSIWYG offering ones, were often called "WYSIWYG word processors" to differentiate them.
Not that "and preview on a computer monitor how the printed copy will appear" is not what you think it is, in other words, it's not live "WYSIWYG" mode, MS Word-style. It also describes the mere ability to preview a rendering of the final page (as will be printed), while you do your layout in another mode. Kind of like Markdown preview today.
There is a whole school of thought about separating the creation of content from the formatting of content. Some think modern word processors impose an expectation that the creator of content also needs to format that content. Modern word processors like Microsoft Word enforce this by applying default formatting and presentation settings to all documents, and in doing so reduce compatibility and increase file size. If you don't like Microsoft's defaults, you have to go through the effort of changing those defaults, and learn to create and save the default template unless you want to manually make changes every time you create a new document. None of this has anything to do with the creation of content, only with its appearance, which of course may be important to you.
In non-WYSIWYG word processors, formatting and page layout are governed by configuration settings, embedded codes, etc. Files created in Word 5.0 weren't readable in WordPerfect 4.2, for example, unless conversion software was used.
Text editors impose no formatting at all, unless you consider default character set and line endings "formatting." You can change the appearance on the screen if you want, but the file you create has no native font style, no character or paragraph formatting, and your choices of appearance make no difference if you open your file in another editor. You don't need a word processor to create your content; you can easily open your text file in Word or Pages to format the document as needed.