A word processor (more formally known as document preparation system) is a computer application used for the production (including composition, editing, formatting, and possibly printing) of any sort of printable material. OpenOfficeorg Writer is the Word processor component of the OpenOffice A computer is a Machine that manipulates data according to a list of instructions. Application software is a subclass of Computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly and thoroughly to a task that the user wishes to perform
Word processor may also refer to an obsolete type of stand-alone office machine, popular in the 1970s and 80s, combining the keyboard text-entry and printing functions of an electric typewriter with a dedicated computer for the editing of text. A typewriter is a mechanical or Electromechanical device with a set of "keys" that when pressed cause characters to be printed on a medium Although features and design varied between manufacturers and models, with new features added as technology advanced, word processors for several years usually featured a monochrome display and the ability to save documents on memory cards or diskettes. A memory card or flash memory card is a solid-state electronic Flash memory Data storage device used with Digital A floppy disk is an increasingly Obsolete data storage medium that is composed of a disk of thin flexible ("floppy" Magnetic storage medium encased Later models introduced innovations such as spell-checking programs, increased formatting options, and dot-matrix printing. As the more versatile combination of a personal computer and separate printer became commonplace, the word processor disappeared. A personal computer ( PC) is any Computer whose original sales price size and capabilities make it useful for individuals and which is intended to be operated
Word processors are descended from early text formatting tools (sometimes called text justification tools, from their only real capability). Word processing was one of the earliest applications for the personal computer in office productivity. Word processing is the creation of documents using a Word processor. A personal computer ( PC) is any Computer whose original sales price size and capabilities make it useful for individuals and which is intended to be operated
Although early word processors used tag-based markup for document formatting, most modern word processors take advantage of a graphical user interface. A markup language is an Artificial language using a set of annotations to text that give instructions regarding the structure of text or how it is to be displayed Most are powerful systems consisting of one or more programs that can produce any arbitrary combination of images, graphics and text, the latter handled with type-setting capability. An image (from Latin imago) or picture is an artifact usually two-dimensional that has a similar appearance to some subject &mdashusually Graphics (from Greek grc [[wiktγραφικός γραφικός]] see -graphy) are Visual presentations on some surface such as a wall Typesetting involves the presentation of textual material in graphic form on Paper or some other medium.
Microsoft Word is the most widely used computer word processing system; Microsoft estimates over five hundred million people use the Office suite, which includes Word. Microsoft Word is Microsoft 's flagship word processing software. Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer Microsoft Office is a set of interrelated desktop applications servers and services collectively referred to as an Office suite, for the Microsoft Windows and There are also many other commercial word processing applications, such as WordPerfect, which dominated the market from the mid-1980s to early-1990s, particularly for machines running Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system. WordPerfect is a proprietary Word processing application At the height of its popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s it was the De facto MS-DOS (short for M icro' s' oft D isk O perating S ystem is an Operating system commercialized by Microsoft. An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination Open-source applications such as OpenOffice.org Writer and KWord are rapidly gaining in popularity. Open source is a development methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge OpenOfficeorg Writer is the Word processor component of the OpenOffice KWord is a free Word processor, a member of the KOffice project and of the K Desktop Environment. Online word processors such as Google Docs are a relatively new category. Google Docs is a free Web-based Word processor, Spreadsheet, and Presentation application offered by Google.
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Word processing typically refers to text manipulation functions such as automatic generation of:
Other word processing functions include "spell checking" (actually checks against wordlists), "grammar checking" (checks for what seem to be simple grammar errors), and a "thesaurus" function (finds words with similar or opposite meanings). In most languages grammar is very complex, so grammar checkers tend to be unreliable and also require a large amount of RAM. In Computing terms a grammar checker is a Program, or part of a program that attempts to verify written text for Grammatical correctness. Other common features include collaborative editing, comments and annotations, support for images and diagrams and internal cross-referencing.
Word processors can be distinguished from several other, related forms of software:
Text editors (modern examples of which include Notepad, Emacs and vi), were the precursors of word processors. A text editor is a type of program used for editing plain Text files Text editors are often provided with Operating systems or software development Notepad is a simple Text editor included with all versions of Microsoft Windows since Windows 1 Emacs is a class of feature-rich Text editors usually characterized by their extensibility vi is a screen-oriented Text editor written by Bill Joy in 1976 for an early BSD release While offering facilities for composing and editing text, they do not format documents. This can be done by batch document processing systems, starting with TJ-2 and RUNOFF and still available in such systems as LaTeX (as well as programs that implement the paged-media extensions to HTML and CSS). Type Justifying Program called TJ-2 was published by Peter Samson in May 1963 and is thought to be the first Page layout program RUNOFF was the first Computer Text formatting program to see significant use LaTeX (ˈleɪtɛ HTML, an initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant Markup language for Web pages It provides a means to describe the structure Text editors are now used mainly by programmers, website designers, and computer system administrators. A programmer is someone who writes Computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist They are also useful when fast startup times, small file sizes and portability are preferred over formatting.
Later desktop publishing programs were specifically designed to allow elaborate layout for publication, but often offered only limited support for editing. Desktop publishing (also known as DTP) combines a Personal computer and WYSIWYG page layout Software to create Publication Documents Typically, desktop publishing programs allowed users to import text that they have written using a text editor or word processor.
Almost all word processors enable users to employ styles, which are used to automate consistent formatting of text body, titles, subtitles, highlighted text, and so on.
Styles are the key to managing the formatting of large documents, since changing a style automatically changes all text that the style has been applied to. Even in shorter documents styles can save a lot of time while formatting. However, most help files refer to styles as an 'advanced feature' of the word processor, which often discourages users from using styles regularly.
Most current word processors can calculate various statistics pertaining to a document. Statistics is a mathematical science pertaining to the collection analysis interpretation or explanation and presentation of Data. These usually include:
Errors are common; for instance, a dash surrounded by spaces — like either of these — may be counted as a word.
Word processors have a variety of uses and applications within the business world, home, and education.
Within the business world, word processors are extremely useful tools. Typical uses include:
Businesses tend to have their own format and style for any of these. Thus, versatile word processors with layout editing and similar capabilities find widespread use in most businesses.
Many schools have begun to teach typing and word processing to their students, starting as early as elementary school. Typically these skills are developed throughout secondary school in preparation for the business world. Undergraduate students typically spend many hours writing essays. Graduate and doctoral students continue this trend, as well as creating works for research and publication. These manuscripts are often in excess of 200 pages, and are typically the defining point of a student's career.
While many homes have word processors on their computers, word processing in the home tends to be educational or business related, dealing with assignments or work being completed at home. Some use word processors for letter writing, résumé creation, and card creation. However, many of these home publishing processes have been taken over by desktop publishing programs such as Adobe Pagemaker, which is better suited for these types of documents. PageMaker was the first Desktop publishing program introduced in 1985 by Aldus Corporation, initially for the Apple Macintosh but soon after also
The term word processing was invented by IBM in the late 1960s. By 1971 it was recognized by the New York Times as a "buzz word". [1] A 1971 Times article referred to "the brave new world of Word Processing or W/P. That's International Business Machines talk. . . I. B. M. introduced W/P about five years ago for its Magnetic Selectric typewriter and other electronic razzle-dazzle. The IBM MT/ST ( Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter) is a predecessor of the modern Word processor. "[2]
IBM defined the term in a broad and vague way as "the combination of people, procedures, and equipment which transforms ideas into printed communications," and originally used it to include dictating machines and ordinary, manually-operated Selectric typewriters. [3] By the early seventies, however, the term was generally understood to mean semiautomated typewriters affording at least some form of electronic editing and correction, and the ability to produce perfect "originals. " Thus, the Times headlined a 1974 Xerox product as a "speedier electronic typewriter", but went on to describe the product, which had no screen[4], as "a word processor rather than strictly a typewriter, in that it stores copy on magnetic tape or magnetic cards for retyping, corrections, and subsequent printout. Year 1974 ( MCMLXXIV) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. "[5]
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)[6], and when equipped with an auxiliary reader, could perform an early version of "mail merge". Punched tape or paper tape is a largely obsolete form of Data storage, consisting of a long strip of paper in which holes are punched to store data The Friden Flexowriter, or flexowriter as on its nameplate was a Teleprinter, a heavy duty electric typewriter capable of being driven not only by a human typing Mail merge is a Software function describing the production of multiple (and potentially large numbers of Documents from a single template Circa 1970 it began to be feasible to apply electronic computers to office automation tasks. IBM's Mag Tape Selectric Typewriter (MTST) and later Mag Card Selectric (MCST) were early devices of this kind, which allowed editing, simple revision, and repetitive typing, with a one-line display for editing single lines. [7]
The New York Times, reporting on a 1971 business equipment trade show, said
In 1971, a third of all working women in the United States were secretaries, and they could see that word processing would have an impact on their careers. Some manufacturers, according to a Times article, urged that "the concept of 'word processing' could be the answer to Women's Lib advocates' prayers. Word processing will replace the 'traditional' secretary and give women new administrative roles in business and industry. "[1]
The 1970s word processing concept did not refer merely to equipment, but, explicitly, to the use of equipment for "breaking down secretarial labor into distinct components, with some staff members handling typing exclusively while others supply administrative support. A typical operation would leave most executives without private secretaries. Instead one secretary would perform various administrative tasks for three or more secretaries. "[8] A 1971 article said that "Some [secretaries] see W/P as a career ladder into management; others see it as a dead-end into the automated ghetto; others predict it will lead straight to the picket line. " The National Secretaries Association, which defined secretaries as people who "can assume responsibility without direct supervision," feared that W/P would transform secretaries into "space-age typing pools. " The article considered only the organizational changes resulting from secretaries operating word processors rather than typewriters; the possibility that word processors might result in managers creating documents without the intervention of secretaries was not considered—not surprising in an era when few but secretaries possessed keyboarding skills. [2]
In the early 1970's, computer scientist Harold Koplow was hired by Wang Laboratories to program calculators. Harold Koplow ( November 21, 1940 - November 4, 2004) an American computer scientist and one of the early developers of Office automation Wang Laboratories was a computer company founded in 1951 by Dr One of his programs permitted a Wang calculator to interface with an IBM Selectric typewriter, which was at the time used to calculate and print the paperwork for auto sales.
In 1974, Koplow's interface program was developed into the Wang 1200 Word Processor, an IBM Selectric-based text-storage device. The operator of this machine typed text on a conventional IBM Selectric; when the Return key was pressed, the line of text was stored on a cassette tape. One cassette held roughly 20 pages of text, and could be "played back" (i. e. , the text retrieved) by printing the contents on continuous-form paper in the 1200 typewriter's "print" mode. The stored text could also be edited, using keys on a simple, six-key array. Basic editing functions included Insert, Delete, Skip (character, line), and so on.
The labor and cost savings of this device were immediate, and remarkable: pages of text no longer had to be retyped to correct simple errors, and projects could be worked on, stored, and then retrieved for use later on. The rudimentary Wang 1200 machine was the precursor of the Wang Office Information System (OIS), introduced in 1976, whose CRT-based system was a major breakthrough in word processing technology. Year 1976 ( MCMLXXVI) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. It displayed text on a CRT screen, and incorporated virtually every fundamental characteristic of word processors as we know them today. It was a true office machine, affordable by organizations such as medium-sized law firms, and easily learned and operated by secretarial staff.
The Wang was not the first CRT-based machine nor were all of its innovations unique to Wang. In the early 1970s Linolex, Lexitron and Vydec introduced pioneering word-processing systems with CRT display editing. This article is about the Decade 1970-1979 For the Year 1970 see 1970. The cathode ray tube (CRT is a Vacuum tube containing an Electron gun (a source of electrons and a Fluorescent screen with internal or A visual display unit, often called simply a monitor or display, is a piece of Electrical equipment which displays images generated from the Video A Canadian electronics company, Automatic Electronic Systems, had introduced a product with similarities to Wang's product in 1973, but went into bankruptcy a year later. Its first office product, the AES-90[9], combined for the first time a CRT-screen, a floppy-disk and a microprocessor, that is, the very same winning combination that would be used by IBM for its PC seven years later. The AES-90 software was able to handle French and English typing from the start. The first eight units were delivered to the office of the then Prime Minister, Pierre-Elliot Trudeau, in February 1974. In 1976, refinanced by the Canada Development Corporation, it returned to operation as AES Data, and went on to successfully market its brand of word processors worldwide until its demise in the mid-1980s. Despite these predecessors, Wang's product was a standout, and by 1978 it had sold more of these systems than any other vendor. [10]
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 (marketing AES Data machines, re-badged), CPT, and NBI. [11] All were specialized, dedicated, proprietary systems, with prices in the $10,000 ballpark. Cheap general-purpose computers were still the domain of hobbyists.
Some of the earliest CRT-based machines used cassette tapes for removable-memory storage until floppy diskettes became available for this purpose - first the 8-inch floppy, then the 5-1/4-inch (drives by Shugart Associates and diskettes by Dysan). A floppy disk is an increasingly Obsolete data storage medium that is composed of a disk of thin flexible ("floppy" Magnetic storage medium encased Shugart Associates was a Computer peripheral manufacturer that dominated the Floppy disk drive market in the late 1970s and is famous for introducing the minifloppy Dysan was a storage media manufacturing corporation formed in 1973 in San Jose, California, by CEO and former president C
Printing of documents was initially accomplished using IBM Selectric typewriters modified for ASCII-character input. These were later replaced by application-specific daisy wheel printers (Diablo, which became a Xerox company, and Qume -- both now defunct. A daisy wheel printer is a printing technology which produces high-quality output comparable to that produced by high-end typewriters such as the IBM Selectric. Diablo Data Systems was a division of Xerox created by the acquisition of Diablo Systems Inc Qume was a manufacturer of Daisy-wheel printers originally located in Hayward California, later moving to San Jose. ) For quick "draft" printing, dot-matrix line printers were optional alternatives with some word processors.
With the rise of personal computers, and in particular the IBM PC and PC compatibles, 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. IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Some programs were modeled after particular dedicated WP hardware. MultiMate, for example, was written for an insurance company that had hundreds of typists using Wang systems, and spread from there to other Wang customers. MultiMate was a Word processor developed by Softword Systems Inc To adapt to the smaller PC keyboard, MultiMate used stick-on labels and a large plastic clip-on template to remind users of its dozens of Wang-like functions, using the shift, alt and ctrl keys with the 10 IBM function keys and many of the alphabet keys.
Other early word-processing software required users to memorize semi-mnemonic key combinations rather than pressing keys labelled "copy" or "bold. " (In fact, many early PCs lacked cursor keys; WordStar famously used the E-S-D-X-centered "diamond" for cursor navigation, and modern vi-like editors encourage use of hjkl for navigation. WordStar was a Word processor application published by MicroPro, originally written for the CP/M operating system but later ported to DOS, that ) However, the price differences between dedicated word processors and general-purpose PCs, and the value added to the latter by software such as VisiCalc, were so compelling that personal computers and word processing software soon became serious competition for the dedicated machines. VisiCalc was the first Spreadsheet program available for personal computers Word Perfect, XyWrite, Microsoft Word and dozens of other word processing software brands competed in the 1980s. WordPerfect is a proprietary Word processing application At the height of its popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s it was the De facto XyWrite is a Word processor for DOS and Windows modeled on the ATEX mainframe program Microsoft Word is Microsoft 's flagship word processing software. Development of higher-resolution monitors allowed them to provide limited WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get, to the extent that typographical features like bold and italics, indentation, justification and margins were approximated on screen. WYSIWYG (ˈwɪziwɪg or /ˈwɪzɪwɪg/ is an Acronym for W hat Y ou S ee I s W hat Y ou G
The mid-to-late 1980s saw the spread of laser printers, a "typographic" approach to word processing, and of true WYSIWYG bitmap displays with multiple fonts (pioneered by the Xerox Alto computer and Bravo word processing program), Postscript, and graphical user interfaces (another Xerox PARC innovation, with the Gypsy word processor which was commercialised in the Xerox Star product range). In Computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of memory organization or Image file format used to store Digital images The The Xerox Alto was an early Personal computer developed at Xerox PARC in 1973. Bravo was the first WYSIWYG Document preparation program. It provided multi-font capability using the Bitmap displays on PostScript ( PS) is a dynamically typed concatenative Programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982 PARC (Palo Alto Research Center Inc formerly Xerox PARC, is a Research and development company in Palo Alto California that began as a division of Gypsy was the first modern Document preparation system, using the modern style of Graphical user interface (in which the mouse was used to initiate commands The Star Workstation, officially known as the Xerox 8010 Information System, was introduced Standalone word processors adapted by getting smaller and replacing their CRTs with small character-oriented LCD displays. Some models also had computer-like features such as floppy disk drives and the ability to output to an external printer. A floppy disk is an increasingly Obsolete data storage medium that is composed of a disk of thin flexible ("floppy" Magnetic storage medium encased They also got a name change, now being called "electronic typewriters" and typically occupying a lower end of the market, selling for under $200 USD.
MacWrite, Microsoft Word and other word processing programs for the bit-mapped Apple Macintosh screen, introduced in 1984, were probably the first true WYSIWYG word processors to become known to many people until the introduction of Microsoft Windows. MacWrite was a Word processor application released along with the first Apple Macintosh systems in 1984 Microsoft Word is Microsoft 's flagship word processing software. Dedicated word processors eventually became museum pieces.