WYSIWYG Facts for Kids

WYSIWYG (pronounced WIZ-ee-wig) is a computer term that stands for What You See Is What You Get. It describes software where what you see on your screen looks almost exactly like the final product. This could be a printed document, a web page, or a presentation slide.

Imagine you are writing a school report. With WYSIWYG software, when you make text bold or change its size, you see those changes right away on your screen. You don't have to guess what it will look like when you print it or share it online. This makes it much easier to design and arrange your work.

How Computers Used to Work
The Start of WYSIWYG
Where the Name Came From
Other Ways to Say It
See also

How Computers Used to Work

Before WYSIWYG, creating documents on a computer was very different.

Typing Special Codes

In the past, if you wanted to make text bold or italic, you had to type special codes around it. For example, you might type `bold text` to make text bold. You wouldn't see the text become bold on your screen. Instead, you would just see the codes.

Guessing the Look

It was hard to tell how your document would look when printed. You couldn't easily see things like how wide the margins were or how much space was between lines. Each program often had its own unique codes, which made it tricky to switch between different word processors.

Why Codes Were Used

These special codes, also called "markup tags," are still used today in some advanced programs. They can store lots of detailed formatting information. However, when these codes are visible, they take up space on the screen. This can make it hard to see the actual layout of your document.

The Start of WYSIWYG

The idea of "What You See Is What You Get" changed how people used computers.

First Steps with Bravo

The first program to use WYSIWYG technology was called Bravo. It was made in 1974 at a company called Xerox PARC. Bravo showed text on the screen with the correct formatting, like different fonts and spacing. The computer screen it ran on was designed to show a full page of text. This text could then be printed on early laser printers.

Early Commercial Use

In 1978, Hewlett-Packard (HP) released the first commercial WYSIWYG software. It was used to create overhead slides for presentations. This program was first called BRUNO and later HP Draw.

WYSIWYG Becomes More Common

By the early 1980s, some word processors, like WordStar, started showing bold or italic text directly on screen. However, most home computers at that time weren't powerful enough for full WYSIWYG.

The real change came with computers like the Apple Lisa in 1983 and the Apple Macintosh in 1984. These computers had better graphics. Programs like MacWrite on the Macintosh made WYSIWYG popular. The Macintosh screen and its printers were designed to work together. This meant that what you saw on the screen was almost exactly what you got when you printed it.

Where the Name Came From

The phrase "what you see is what you get" was made famous by a comedian named Flip Wilson. His character, Geraldine, used the phrase in the early 1970s on The Flip Wilson Show. She used it to say that people should accept her just as she was.

Later, people started using the phrase for computers:

Around 1974, someone saw the Bravo program and said, "You mean, what I see is what I get?"
Engineers at Xerox PARC also started using Flip Wilson's phrase around 1975.

Other Ways to Say It

People have made up other phrases similar to WYSIWYG, often to make a point or a joke. Here are a few:

WYGIWYS (What You Get Is What You See): This describes software where the final result is shown first, and you work backward from there. An example is the "Ribbon" menu in Microsoft Office.
WYSIAYG (What You See Is All You Get): This is sometimes used to say that a program's easy-to-use interface might limit what advanced users can do.
WYSIMOLWYG (What You See Is More Or Less What You Get): This phrase admits that most WYSIWYG programs aren't perfectly exact. There might be small differences between the screen and the final product.
WYSINWYW (What You See Is Not What You Want): This is a humorous way to say that sometimes a program seems to control you, instead of you controlling it!
YAFIYGI (You Asked For It You Got It): This is the opposite of WYSIWYG. It describes programs where you type commands, and you get exactly what you asked for, even if it wasn't what you really wanted.

WYSIWYG facts for kids

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