WYSIWYG Facts for Kids

WYSIWYG (pronounced "wiz-ee-wig") is a cool computer term that stands for what you see is what you get. It refers to computer programs that let you create and edit things, like documents or web pages, in a way that looks very similar to how they will appear when finished.

Imagine you're writing a school report. With WYSIWYG software, you see the text, pictures, and headings on your screen exactly as they will look when you print the report. This makes it much easier to design and arrange things without needing to know special computer codes. It's like drawing a picture on a tablet, and the printed picture looks just like your drawing!

How WYSIWYG Changed Computing
Where Did the Name WYSIWYG Come From?
Other Fun WYSIWYG Phrases
See also

How WYSIWYG Changed Computing

Before WYSIWYG, making documents look good on a computer was quite tricky.

Early Days of Text Editing

In the past, when people used computers to write, the text on their screen looked very plain. It was all the same size and style. To make text bold or italic, or to change its size, you had to type special "control codes" or "markup tags" around the text.

For example, to make text bold, you might type something like `[B]This is bold[/B]`. You wouldn't see the text as bold on your screen until you printed it out! Every different program had its own special codes, which made it confusing and slow to format documents.

The First WYSIWYG Programs

The very first program to use WYSIWYG technology was called Bravo. It was created in 1974 by smart people at Xerox PARC, a famous research center. Bravo ran on a special computer called the Alto. It was amazing because it showed text on the screen with different fonts, sizes, and spacing, just like it would look when printed. The Alto's screen was even designed to show a full page of text, which could then be printed on the first laser printers.

Later, in 1978, Hewlett-Packard (HP) developed one of the first commercial (meaning, sold to people) WYSIWYG programs. It was called BRUNO and helped people create slides for presentations.

WYSIWYG for Everyone

In the early 1980s, as computers became more powerful and less expensive, WYSIWYG software started to appear on computers that people could buy for their homes and offices.

In 1981, the program WordStar could show bold and italic text directly on the screen, instead of just showing codes.
Then, in 1983, the Apple Lisa computer came out with a program called LisaWrite.
In 1984, the popular Apple Macintosh computer was released with MacWrite. These programs made it much easier for everyday users to create professional-looking documents.

The Apple Macintosh system was designed so that what you saw on the screen was very close to what you got when you printed. The screen and the ImageWriter printers (sold by Apple) had resolutions that worked well together. This meant that if you held a printed page next to the screen, the text and images would be the same size, just clearer on the printout.

Where Did the Name WYSIWYG Come From?

The phrase "what you see is what you get" was first made popular by a comedian named Flip Wilson. He used it often in the early 1970s on his TV show, The Flip Wilson Show. His character, Geraldine, would say it to mean that you should accept her exactly as she was.

Later, people working with computers started using the phrase to describe the new software that showed documents on screen just as they would print.

Around 1974, someone at Xerox PARC saw the Bravo program and said, "You mean, what I see is what I get?"
Others say the engineers at PARC started using Flip Wilson's popular phrase around 1975 to describe their new software.
Another story says the term was first used in a meeting in 1978 by Bill Tunnicliffe, describing how new printing systems worked.

Other Fun WYSIWYG Phrases

Sometimes, people make up variations of WYSIWYG to describe different computer experiences or to make a joke. Here are a few:

WYSIMOLWYG: This stands for "what you see is more or less what you get." It's used to show that even the best WYSIWYG programs aren't always perfect.
WYSIAYG: This means "what you see is all you get." It can be used when a program's design limits what advanced users can do.
WYSINWYW: This is a funny one: "what you see is not what you want." It's sometimes used to joke about programs that seem to control the user instead of the other way around!
YAFIYGI: This stands for "you asked for it you got it." It describes older computer systems where you typed commands, and sometimes what you got wasn't exactly what you wanted! It's seen as the opposite of WYSIWYG.

WYSIWYG facts for kids

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