Word processing

Word processing software allows you to use a computer to draft, correct and print written documents such as letters, press articles, invoices, contracts or advertisements. Word processing is one of the most popular applications. In its simplest form, a program does exactly what a typewriter does. More sophisticated programs allow you to add photos or drawings, as well as change the size and appearance of characters and check spelling. The documents thus created can then be printed as many times as necessary.

Forms of software

Text editors

A text editor is a software that allows you to enter and modify texts interactively. In general, has few or no formatting functions. Different encodings (for example in ASCII or in Unicode) can be used to convert the signals emitted by the keys of the keyboard into binary units representing characters, which are then displayed or printed in the form of printed characters.

Automatic word processing

An automatic word processor is software for automatically processing text; in other words, it’s a compiler for a text formatting language: the user uses a standard text editor and composes a (source) document using semantic markup, and secondly, the compiler produces the document in its printable, or consumable, form; the compiler combines semantic markup (e.g. section descriptions, blocks, or citations) with a style sheet to produce the consumable form of the document. This form is preferred for all matters relating to technical editing, and, a fortiori, when complete chains of subcontractors are involved, in order to guarantee a homogeneity of presentation at each level, according to the choices of each. An example of this type of software is TeX, whose strong point is in particular the layout of scientific documents with mathematical formulas, but which allows, thanks to its many “packages”, to layout a large number of varied documents. .

Includes texts translated and adapted by Nicolae Sfetcu from Wikipedia