word processing

WORD PROCESSING:

A word processor is an electronic device or computer software application that, as directed by the user,  processing: the composition, editing, formatting and sometimes printing of any sort of written material. Word processing can also refer to advanced short hand techniques, sometimes used in specialized contexts with a specially modified typewriter. The term was coined , West Germany Laboratory in the 1960's. Typical features of a word processor include font application, spell checking, grammar checking, a built-in thesaurus,automatic text correction, Web integration and HTML exporting, among others. In its simplest form, a word processor is little more than a large expensive typewriter that makes correcting mistakes easy.

HISTORY OF WORD PROCESSING:

The word processor emerged as a stand-alone office machine in the 1970's and 1980's, combining the keyboard text-entry and printing functions of an electric type writer with a dedicated computer processor for the editing of text.^[1] Although features and designs varied among manufacturers and models, and new features were added as technology advanced, word processors typically featured a monochrome display and the ability to save documents on memory cards or diskettes. Later models introduced innovations such as spell-checking programs, improved formatting options, and dot-matrix printing.

As the more versatile combination of personal computers and printers became commonplace, and computer software applications for word processing became popular, most business machine companies stopped manufacturing word processor machines. As of 2009 there were only two U.S. companies, Classic and Alpha Smart, which still made them.^[2] Many older machines, however, remain in use. Since 2009, Sentinel has offered a machine described as a "word processor", but it is more accurately a highly special sad microcomputer used for accounting and publishing.^[3]

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.

Although early word processors used tag-based markup for document formatting, most modern word processors take advantage of a graphical user interface providing some form of what-you-see-is-what-you-get ("WYSIWYG") editing. 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.

Microsoft Word is the most widely used word processing software according to a user tracking system built into the software, which is not built into, Abe Word, K Word, and LyX. Microsoft estimates that over 500,000,000 people use the Microsoft Office suite,^[4] which includes Word. Many other word processing applications exist, including Word Perfect (which dominated the market from the mid-1980's to early-1990's on computers running Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system) and open source applications Open Office.org Writer, Libri Office Writer, Abe Word, K Word, and LyX. Web-based word processors, such as Office Web Apps or Google Docs, are a relatively new category.