What is a Word Processor?
You might have heard the widely thrown around term of ‘paperless office’ or ‘paperless environment’. Although we’re still a long way off from realizing that dream, but there are instances where paper as such is no longer required to any type of official business level communication.
Most of the credit for this definitely goes to word processor programs and applications that help employees put in their communication through digital means. Not only have such word processors allowed for quick and easy communication internally (or externally) within an organization but also has helped improve effectiveness and efficiency of a workplace – since waiting times have been reduced drastically.
So before we dive deep into the different types of word processors available in the market, let’s have a look at how it all began.
The History of Word Processor – How It All Began?
Take today’s word processors as an extension or an evolved form of a type writer. Originally marketed back in 1867, a manual typewriter was first introduced in to the market by a gun manufacturing company.
The first phase of this evolution involved electric typewriters, which could be used for typing of letters automatically while adding/removing specific letters in case of any corrections.
Automatic Typewriters
This was as ‘automatic’ as you could get – a type writer person would manually type something, then proof read it for any mistakes. Once he/she was satisfied, a final re-type would be needed to actually finish the document.
The operators in charge of these word processors were trained typists, who had to be very careful with specifics of a page like orientation, line spacing, page width and all of these details had to be taken into consideration manually. Later on, change in font was added as a new feature enjoyed by some of the leading newspaper agencies for their print production and newsletters. The default ‘typing ball’ font slowly was replaced by a collection of changeable fonts.
From Typewriters to Word Processors
At that time, there were no personal computers. Machines would specifically be built for the purpose of word processing. Rather than evolving through ideas of mathematicians and computer geeks, the word processor was in fact born out of the necessity of writers. Later on, as the computers started to trickle down into our personal lives did we see word processors integrated with the personal computer.
As such, the actual introduction of word processing software that we see today is not marked for sure with a historical timeline. But it’s safe to say that with the mass division of personal computers and printers in the early 1990’s, typewriters as such were fully replaced with dedicated word processing software and programs rather than having to resort to separate machines for typing text on to paper.
Let us fast forward to present time and see what exactly are Word Processors used for nowadays.
Word Processors – What Are They Used For?
In a contemporary office (or a professional) environment, a word processing software is used to create documents and reports like for example a resume or a marketing proposal. Text is entered by typing letters using a keyboard on to a software that takes care of the functions of editing, copying, pasting, deleting and other formatting methods.
Features of a Word Processor
Some of the basic features of a word processor includes:
- Copying, editing, saving and printing reports and documents
- Copying, deleting, pasting, and shifting text within a certain page/document
- Formatting of text like changing size (font size), italicizing (italics), bolding (bold) or strikethroughs and underlines
- Formatting tables (drawing/inserting rows and columns to make full-fledged tables)
- Placing pictures, graphs and all sorts of illustrations within and around the text document
- Correction of spelling mistakes and a fully functioning dictionary in most cases
Word processing software should not be confused with simple text editors. Text editors (like Window’s Notepad) can also allow you to type in text with a few basic formatting inputs but don’t have the more advanced features like underlining, different fonts, adding pictures and graphs etc.
Top Three Popular and Best Word Processors
So let us now look at what word processors are the best options available out there in the market. We will start off with the most popular one as of yet; Microsoft Word.
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is hands down the most popular of all word processing software out there. According to the company Microsoft itself, the estimation is that around half a billion people on this planet currently use Microsoft Word for the purpose of word processing. It is therefore no surprise that 90 percent of the word processing market share is captured by Microsoft Word.
Originally introduced to the public back in the year 1989, the current version of Microsoft Word has seen numerous updates (multiple times each year) and comes as a package with the suite of Office applications along with PowerPoint, Publisher, Excel, and Outlook.
WordPerfect
If you ask someone knowledgeable in the computer industry to name a software other than Microsoft Word itself, the word WordPerfect will be the obvious answer. More suited towards writing short essays and quick articles, WordPerfect best strength is its compatibility with Microsoft Word. A bit ironic but it definitely does the trick when you need to open up WordPerfect documents with Microsoft Word.
Lotus Word Pro
If your office computers are integrated on Lotus portal, then Lotus Word Pro is your ideal for all your needs. Lotus Word Pro can be connected with all your Lotus applications to produce properly formatted documents. Although it’s produced and distributed by IBM Corporation, it’s also compatible with Windows based programs particularly Microsoft Word.