A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current word processors are primarily word processor programs running on general purpose computers, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers, with dedicated hardware word processors being confined to a small niche market. The functions of a word processor program are typically between those of a simple text editor and a desktop publishing program. Many word processing programs have gained advanced features over time providing similar functionality to desktop publishing programs. Common word processor programs include LibreOffice Writer, Google Docs, and Microsoft Word.
Background Word processors developed from mechanical machines, later merging with computer technology. The history of word processing is the story of the gradual automation of the physical aspects of writing and editing, and then to the refinement of the technology to make it available to corporations and Individuals. The term word processing appeared in American offices in the early 1970s, centered on the idea of streamlining the work of typists, but the meaning soon shifted toward the automation of the whole editing cycle. At first, the designers of word processing systems combined existing technologies with emerging ones to develop stand-alone equipment, creating a new business distinct from the emerging world of the personal computer. The concept of word processing arose from the more general data processing, which since the 1950s had been the application of computers to business administration. Through history, there have been three types of word processors: mechanical, electronic, and software.
Mechanical word processing The first word processing device (a "Machine for Transcribing Letters" that appears to have been similar to a typewriter) was patented in 1714 by Henry Mill for a machine that was capable of "writing so clearly and accurately you could not distinguish it from a printing press". More than a century later, another patent appeared in the name of William Austin Burt for the typographer. In the late 19th century, Christopher Latham Sholes created the first recognizable typewriter, which was described as a "literary piano". The only "word processing" these mechanical systems could perform was to change where letters appeared on the page, to fill in spaces that were previously left on the page, or to skip over lines. It was not until decades later that the introduction of electricity and electronics into typewriters began to help the writer with the mechanical part. The term "word processing" (translated from the German word Textverarbeitung) itself was possibly created in the 1950s by Ulrich Steinhilper, a German IBM typewriter sales executive, or by an American electro-mechanical typewriter executive, George M. Ryan, who obtained a trademark registration in the USPTO for the phrase. However, it did not make its appearance in 1960s office management or computing literature (an example of grey literature), though many of the ideas, products, and technologies to which it would later be applied were already well known. Nonetheless, by 1971, the term was recognized by the New York Times as a business "buzz word". Word processing paralleled the more general "data processing", or the application of computers to business administration. Thus, by 1972, the discussion of word processing was common in publications devoted to business office management and technology; by the mid-1970s, the term would have been familiar to any office manager who consulted business periodicals.
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