#What is WYSIWYG?
6 messages in this thread
Could someone tell me what WYSIWYG is.I am not an experienced user of word
processors but have an occasional use for one. I find it both annoying and
confusing when the page that you are typing is larger than the screen on
the amiga. It jumps to the other half of the screen.I would like to find a
wp that doesnt do this. Am I asking too much. or is there something really
basic that I dont understand.
No, Bill, you're not asking too much, but it may be difficult to achieve on
the Amiga. WYSIWYG is an acronym for 'What You See Is What You Get', i.e.,
the image on the monitor should look exactly like whta gets printed.
Like all definitions taken over by the marketing droids, there is WYSIWIG
and there is WYSIWIG. In other words, a lot of stuff billed as WYSIWIG
isn't, and in particular most of it would not fit your implied definition
of making the screen width match the paper width for large documents.
I can't help you as to what Amiga wordprocessor is the most WYSIWIG. I use
WordPerfect (for the font control), and it is definitely not WYSIWIG. Such
products do exist (I use one on my Mac at work), but I'm not sure the Amiga
state of the art is up to the challenge yet.
– Mark
Thanks Mark.I guess that if you restrict the document to 80 columns then
that is the only way to get true WYSIWYG.Is this correct? ?exit
No, you could go with more than 80 columns and user a smaller font…or you
could relax your definition of WYSIWIG and only get to see part of the page
at any one time. The latter is the approach a lot of software uses (and
which I wish the Mac would use; true WYSIWIG can be a real pain in the tush
because reading 10 or 12 pt type on a monitor is a good way to get eye
strain!)
– Mark
Bill,
Yes you did miss something. In a WYSIWIG WP both the page and the right &
left margins are shown as they would appear on the printed page. Since the
normal printed page is eight and a half inches across the top and the
normal margin is half inch on both sides you will see a lot of useless
white space on the left of your screen.
You can shut the margins off!!! You must then define your line length to
what you are going to use. This depends on if your using your printer
fonts or your screen fonts.
Using printer fonts at 10cpi … thats 10 Charaters Per Inch … you set
line length to 70 chareters.
At 12cpi use 84 Charaters and at 15 use 105… Things change with
condenced and proportional.
Just remember to add your margins before printing. Most WP's give you
macros for doing just that.
-Tom