WYSIWYG is an acronym for “what you see is what you get”. It means that what appears on the screen is what the final product will look like. WYSIWYG editors are used to create web pages, documents or other formatted material. Many modern programs use WYSIWYG editing, but it wasn’t always the case. Modern word processing software has solved many of the problems with hard-coded formatting. A WYSIWYG editor can also be used in computer programming, but some professional programmers have concerns about its limitations.
WYSIWYG, pronounced wiziwig, is an acronym for what you see is what you get. When used in computing, this term means that what appears on the screen is what the final product will look like. A WYSIWYG editor can be used to create web pages, documents or other formatted material. Microsoft Word is an example of a WYSIWYG editor.
In the modern world of computing, many programs use WYSIWYG editing, but that wasn’t always the case. When word processing software was first introduced, users had to memorize a series of symbols and codes to format a document. Spacing, font size, and other format characteristics should essentially be hard-coded. The codes weren’t always translated from one word processor to another. Switching word processors was a hassle because it required a whole new set of code.
Modern word processing software has solved many of these problems. Instead of entering a snippet of code to italicize the text, the user can simply highlight the word and click an italic button. The word then appears in italics, both on screen and in the printed document. Indeed, if a user wants to see edit symbols in a program like Microsoft Word, he has to navigate through a series of menus and change the program’s settings.
A WYSIWYG editor can also be used in computer programming. Many modern HTML editors have WYSIWIG functionality. This allows the user to edit or even create a web page without having to write any code. In this way, computer programming can be accessible even to people with little experience with computer programming languages.
The way a WYSIWYG editor works is by allowing the user to physically manipulate the graphical elements on the screen. As items are moved and changed, the WYSIWYG editor changes the code to reflect the changes on screen. This way of creating a web page is much easier for the inexperienced, but can be frustrating for those users familiar with programming languages.
Many professional and experienced programmers have expressed concerns about WYSIWYG coding. Code created by WYSIWYG editors tends to be more convoluted and less elegant than handwritten code. This is partly because the code comes in prescribed chunks that must be assembled by the program to reflect the screen. A WYSIWYG editor also allows for less flexibility than a traditional code editor because the user can only edit what the programs allow them to edit.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
