Word Processor or Document Preparation System

A word processor (more formally known as document preparation system) is a computer application used for the production (including composition, editing, formatting, and possibly printing) of any sort of printable material.
Word processor may also refer to an obsolete type of stand-alone office machine, popular in the 1970s and 80s, combining the keyboard text-entry and printing functions of an electric typewriter with a dedicated computer for the editing of text. Although features and design varied between manufacturers and models, with new features added as technology advanced, word processors for several years usually featured a monochrome display and the ability to save documents on memory cards or diskettes. Later models introduced innovations such as spell-checking programs, increased formatting options, and dot-matrix printing. As the more versatile combination of a personal computer and separate printer became commonplace, the word processor disappeared.
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. 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 computer word processing system; Microsoft estimates over five hundred million people use the Office suite, which includes Word. There are also many other commercial word processing applications, such as WordPerfect, which dominated the market from the mid-1980s to early-1990s, particularly for machines running Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system. Open-source applications such as Abiword, KWord, LyX and OpenOffice.org Writer are rapidly gaining in popularity. Online word processors such as Google Docs are a relatively new category.
A type of editor whose prime aim is to produce neatly printed text. Such programs use a lot of additional information (apart from actual text) to control the output on the printer. A consequence of this latter fact is that files produced with one word processor cannot be read automatically by another unless they are first converted to ASCII text (with the loss of formatting information). An alternative, which saves the formatting, is to store files in the Rich Text Format (RTF) or Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) format.
An application that allows for the manipulation of letters for the purpose of writing proposals, letters, stories or any other article of literature. Most word processors also have inherent functions that enable them to spell- check and perform other similar operations.
An application for creating text-based documents, changing their layout and adding footnotes, annotations or revisions.
Commercial software that are widely used.
AppleWorks refers to two different office suite products, both of which are now discontinued. Originally, AppleWorks was an integrated software package for the Apple II platform, released in 1984 by Apple Computer. In 1998, the name AppleWorks was repurposed by Apple following its elimination of its Claris subsidiary, which marketed a software package for Macintosh and Windows named ClarisWorks. At one time, AppleWorks was bundled with all consumer level Macs sold by Apple.
As of August 15, 2007, AppleWorks has reached end-of-life status, and is no longer being sold.[1] Word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications similar to AppleWorks are currently sold as the iWork suite.
Applixware Words is a word processor that has been available for different UNIX platforms since 1992; a Linux version was released in 1996. Part of the Applixware cross platform development IDE, Applixware Words is a full featured word processor with macros, forms, and RealTime financial data feed display capacity.
Applixware, now owned by VistaSource, is available for Linux, Solaris, Microsoft Windows, AIX and HP-UX.
Lotus Word Pro is word processor software produced by IBM's Lotus Software group for use on Microsoft Windows-compatible computers and on IBM OS/2 Warp. Word Pro can be obtained as part of the Lotus SmartSuite office suite.
Word Pro was based upon Ami Pro (published by Samna), but was substantially rewritten (including a new native document format). The predecessor to Ami Pro, Amí, was released in 1988, and was the first fully-functional Windows word processor. (The Windows version of Microsoft Word would not debut until early 1989.) Shortly after the release of Amí, the development team added support for tables and renamed the product Ami Pro.
Lotus obtained Ami Pro to round out their office suite by acquiring Samna, and continued to develop Ami Pro further, with version 3 becoming a 32-bit application available for Microsoft Windows and IBM OS/2. The Windows versions of Ami Pro were also bundled with Adobe Type Manager for Windows, as Windows had poor support for scalable fonts before the introduction of TrueType.
In 1994, Joe Guthridge was one of seven awarded the Windows Pioneer Award for feedback the Amí development team gave to Microsoft during the early development of Windows.
Mathematica is a computational software program used widely in scientific, engineering, and mathematical fields and other areas of technical computing. It was originally conceived by Stephen Wolfram and developed by a team of mathematicians and programmers that he assembled and led. It is developed by Wolfram Research of Champaign, Illinois.
Mellel (מלל, the Hebrew for "text") is a shareware word processor for Mac OS X, developed since 2002 and marketed as especially suited for technical and academic writers. It is made by RedleX, a small software company from Israel. New features are added to the program every few months, many of which come from user suggestions. Its closest competitor is Nisus Writer Pro.
The most remarkable feature present in Mellel is its multilanguage support. Languages with non-Latin alphabets, including Arabic, Hebrew and Korean are handled well due to its support for Unicode and OpenType fonts. Its user interface relies heavily on palettes.
Mellel also presents a feature set suitable for working with long and complex documents, in order to match the needs of scholars and technical writers. Mellel has a unique way of handling styles, with a Replace Styles feature which is able to reformat a large amount of text scattered throughout a document (a feature also present in OpenOffice.org Writer and in Nisus Writer for Mac OS Classic). Mellel has a distinctive way of handling footnotes, endnotes and comments, which are treated as different "streams" of a single text, a feature which can help keep different translations of the same text in sync. Cross-references are also dealt with in a singular way by Mellel, which implemented this feature in version 2.5.
Due to its unique approach to implementing many of its features, Mellel lacks full compatibility with standard word processors, and this fact is often pointed out as one if its main shortcomings. Mellel does not support DOCX and ODT and it supports DOC only partially. It has, however, good support for RTF files and is able to export to PDF.
Mellel provides tight integration with Bookends and Sente, bibliographical tools for managing citations.
ThinkFree Office by Haansoft ThinkFree Co. Ltd., a subsidiary company of Haansoft Corporation, is an office suite written in Java that runs on Windows, Linux, and Macintosh platforms.
ThinkFree Office includes a word processor (Write), a spreadsheet (Calc), a presentation program (Show), and a WYSIWYG html and blog editor (Note). ThinkFree Office reads and writes to Microsoft Office file formats (.doc, .xls, and .ppt). ThinkFree Office has a look and feel similar to Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, providing a degree of familiarity to new users.

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