WYSIWYG lets a user see what content will look like while editing it and before it is published.
TL;DR
WYSIWYG – an acronym for what you see is what you get – allows users to preview content changes while they are editing the content and before publishing it. WYSIWYG editing tools enable easy and intuitive content design without coding knowledge.
WYSIWYG (pronounced wiz-ee-wig) is an acronym for What you see is what you get. It is a phrase used to describe editing software that allows users to see changes to content largely how it will be displayed.
Using a user interface, a WYSIWYG editing tool makes it easy for a user to design a document, slideshow presentation, webpage or other content because the user can adjust the layout of the content in a way that approximates how it will look when it is published. This often includes things such as font selection, size, colours and other style choices, the placement, sizing and alignment of images and other graphic elements and setting other layout elements such as margins. These software tools are designed to make it easier and more intuitive to create and alter content because editing content using WYSIWYG allows the user to ‘see’ the content largely how it will look when it is published before it is actually published, and the ability to adjust elements of the content does not require knowledge of CSSWas this free resource helpful? If so, I encourage you to please show your support through a small contribution – it all helps me keep… Learn more →, HTMLWas this free resource helpful? If so, I encourage you to please show your support through a small contribution – it all helps me keep… Learn more → or other coding or markup languages.
Examples of WYSIWYG include laying out documents in Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint and many website CMSWas this free resource helpful? If so, I encourage you to please show your support through a small contribution – it all helps me keep… Learn more → including WordPress, Squarespace, Wix and others.
It is generally accepted that the first WYSIWYG editor was Bravo, a document preparation program for the Xerox Alto computer system, created in 1974 by Charles Simonyi and Butler Lampson at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) [Markoff, 2007]. The phrase is attributed to Karen Thacker, the wife of Xerox hardware designer Charles ‘Chuck’ Thacker, who said, “You mean, what I see is what I get?” when shown Bravo [Markoff, 2007].
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References
- Markoff, J (2007) ‘The Real History of WYSIWYG‘, Bits, The New York Times [archived]. Last accessed Wednesday 28 August 2024.
Useful links
Here’s some links I recommend that learn more about WYSIWYG:
What’s WYSIWYG? How Today’s Online Editor Came to Be
HubSpot gives a detailed overview of WYSIWYG and its history.
Carly Williams – Wednesday 3 April 2024
HubSpot blog – Hubspot
An account of Xerox hardware designer Charles Thacker’s talk at the Computer History Museum’s annual Fellows awards in 2007 about the history of WYSIWYG.
John Markoff – Thursday 18 October 2007
Bits – The New York Times
Disclosure
AI use
This blog post was drafted using Google Docs. Some parts of the text were drawn from or inspired by text generated using AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → {using the prompt ‘Define and describe What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) in a simple and engaging way for non-techies’} using Google Gemini (Enterprise for Google Workspace) and GhatGPT (GPT-4o). No text was incorporated verbatim. All text in this resource was included at my discretion.
Provenance
This resource was produced by Elliott Bledsoe from Agentry, an arts marketing micro-consultancy. It was first published on 1 May 2024. It was updated on 28 Aug 2024. This is version 1.2.
Questions, comments and corrections are welcome – get in touch with Elliott if you have feedback.
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Whether AI-generated outputs are protected by copyright remains contested. To the extend that copyright exists, if at all, in text I generated using AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more → that was adapted or incorporated in this resource, I also license it for reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons licence (CC BY 4.0).