Word processing is the term applied to the computerized production of text-based documents. Documents that are often produced by word-processing systems include memos, letters, mailing labels, reports, proposals, manuals, and basic newsletters. The following sections review the history, components, and features of word processing.

History of Word Processing

Throughout most of the twentieth century, business and government documents were produced with typewriters, first manual and then electric ones. In the mid-1970s, however, computer technology made its way into the typewriter arena, and computerized typewriters were created. Adapting the term data processing, which had been used to refer to computers whose main function was to process data, developers coined the term word processing to refer to the new computerized typewriters.

The earliest word processors were very expensive and not financially feasible for most traditional secretarial situations. Because of word-processing systems' expense and limited capability, cost-benefit studies...