What Is the Difference Between a Word Processing Program & a Text Editing Program?
With freeware and shareware text editing programs becoming more common, many people are opting to do their own web design by writing their own code in languages such as HTML, which requires these programs. Other people use text editors for taking notes rather than using their word processor. What is the difference between these two types of software and can they really be used interchangeably?
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What is a Text Editor?
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A text editing program is a type of program used for editing plain text files. Plain text files would include unformatted readable files, like those used for configuring computer programs or as source code for a website. A text editor is usually included free with your computer (like Notepad for Windows or Text Edit for Mac), although there are more complex text editors for specific programming tasks such as Dreamweaver, which creates HTML plain text files.
What is a Word Processing Program?
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Word processing programs prepare documents that are formatted, such as those used for printed reading material. A word processor can assist you in composing, editing and printing your documents, while formatting the text, font, style and margins. When you want to create a professional looking letter or reference document, use a word processing program such as Microsoft Word or Word Perfect.
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History of Text Editors
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Long before the modern personal computer (in the late 1960s), information was punched into small index cards with keypunch machines. These cards were inserted into card readers and the computer text was created.
The machines that read the cards looked a little like typewriters and could only edit text line by line. In order to see what had been created, it was necessary to print everything out onto paper and make corrections. In the 1970s, a full screen text editor, vi, was invented that enabled used to see the entire text. This was the early editor for Unix and Linux systems in use today.
History of Word Processing Programs
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In the 1970s IBM implemented the term word processing into their typewriting system, hoping to create a buzz over their new electronic typewriting system. The hype worked and by the 1980s many word processing systems were available as independent electronic systems with a full-size screen. However, once the personal computing industry began to create software-based word processing programs in the mid 1980s, the term began to refer more to the programs themselves rather than the hardware.
Features of a Text Editing Program
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Features of the typical text editing program include the ability to search for text and replace it; cutting, copying and pasting text; simple text formatting like line wrap; and importing and merging with existing files.
An important difference between a text editor and a word processor is that plain text files often insert special characters when pasted into a blank word processing program. The formatting, if any, that has been done in a plain text file does not remain when copied into the word processing program.
Features of a Word Processing Program
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Documents that have been created in a word processing program have the ability to alter such features as font, underlining and tables that a text program cannot. Also, if a file is copied into a word processing program from a text editor, caution must be taken to save the file as a ".txt" file so that it will be read correctly. Failure to do so may result in special characters being inserted where they were not needed and can leave your document unreadable.
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