Word Processing Document

1. Pages is a powerful word processor that lets you create stunning documents, and comes included with most Apple devices. And with real-time collaboration, your team can work together from anywhere, whether they’re on Mac, iPad, iPhone, or using a PC.
2. It evolved from the needs of writers rather than those of mathemeticians, only later merging with the computer field. 1 The history of word processing is the story of the gradual automation of the physical aspects of writing and editing, and the refinement of the technology to make it available to individual and corporate users.

A Brief History of Word Processing
(Through 1986)
by Brian Kunde

Microsoft Word 2013 is a word-processing program designed to help you create professional-quality documents. Word helps you organize and write your documents more efficiently. Your first step in creating a document in Word 2013 is to choose whether to start from a blank document or to let a template do much of the work for you.

Note: This paper was written in December, 1986 for a CIS 50 - Sec. 61 class at Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, California. It reflects the industry situation of that time, and should not be used either as a guide to current industry standards or to the present state of the art.

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Contents:

[Text] [Appendix A] [Appendix B] [Notes] [Bibliography] * * * * *

Text:

[Next] [Contents]

Word processing did not develop out of computer technology. It evolved from the needs of writers rather than those of mathemeticians, only later merging with the computer field.¹ The history of word processing is the story of the gradual automation of the physical aspects of writing and editing, and the refinement of the technology to make it available to individual and corporate users.
The invention of printing and moveable type at the end of the Middle Ages² was the initial step in this automation. But the first major advance from manual writing as far as the individual was concerned was the typewriter. Henry Mill, an English engineer of the early eighteenth century, is credited with its invention. The fact that almost nothing is known about his early version today is evidence of its lack of success.³
Christopher Latham Sholes, with the assistance of two colleagues, invented the first successful manual typewriter in 1867. It began to be marketed commercially in 1874, rather improbably by a gun manufacturing company, E. Remington and Sons.⁴ The main drawback of this model was that it printed on the underside of the roller, so that the typist could not view his work until he had finished.⁵
Acceptance of the typewriter was slow at first, but was facilitated over the next several years by various improvements. These included: the shift key, which made it possible to type both capital and lower-case letters with the same keys (1878); printing on the upper side of the roller (1880); and the tab key, permitting the setting of margins (1897).⁶
Eventually, at first in the corporate sector, the typewriter began to catch on. Businesses, which had hitherto had their records and correspondence written and copied by hand, found their paperwork could be done more quickly and legibly on the typewriter.⁷ Typewriting was put within the reach of individuals by the development of portable models, first marketed in the early 1900s.⁸
Thomas Edison patented an electric typewriter in 1872, but the first workable model was not introduced until the 1920s. In the 1930s IBM introduced a more refined version, the IBM Electromatic.⁹ It 'greatly increased typing speeds and quickly gained wide acceptance in the business community.'¹⁰
This was soon followed by the M. Shultz Company's introduction of the automatic or repetitive typewriter, perhaps the greatest step from the typewriter towards modern word processing. The Shultz machine's main innovation was automatic storage of information for later retrieval. It was a sort of 'player typewriter,' punch-coding text onto paper rolls similar to those used in player pianos, which could later be used to activate the keys of the typewriter in the same order as the initial typing. ¹¹ With the automatic typewriter, it was possible to produce multiple typed copies of form letters identical in appearance to the hand-typed original, without the intermediary of carbons, photocopiers or typesetting.
The bulky paper roll machine was succeeded by a device called the Flexowriter, which used paper tape. This had a key that allowed the deletion of mistakes from the tape and copies by punching a 'non-print' code over the code for the character erroniously typed. Long passages of text could be deleted or moved by literally cutting the tape and pasting it back together.¹²
In 1961 IBM introduced the Selectric typewriter, which replaced the standard movable carriage and individual typestrikers with a revolving typeball (often refered to as a 'golfball' or 'walnut'). This could print faster than the traditional typewriter.¹³.
In 1964 IBM brought out the MT/ST (Magnetic Tape/Selectric Typewriter), which combined the features of the Selectric with a magnetic tape drive. Magnetic tape was the first reusable storage medium for typed information.¹⁴ With this, for the first time, typed material could be edited without having to retype the whole text or chop up a coded copy. On the tape, information could be stored, replayed (that is, retyped automatically from the stored information), corrected, reprinted as many times as needed, and then erased and reused for other projects. This development marked the beginning of word processing as it is known today.¹⁵
It also introduced word processing as a definite idea and concept. The term was first used in IBM's marketing of the MT/ST as a 'word processing' machine.¹⁶. It was a translation of the German word textverabeitung, coined in the late 1950s by Ulrich Steinhilper, an IBM engineer. He used it as a more precise term for what was done by the act of typing.¹⁷ IBM redefined it 'to describe electronic ways of handling a standard set of office activities — composing, revising, printing, and filing written documents.'¹⁸
Since the invention of the MT/ST, advances in technology have made word processing systems less expensive to produce, leading to intensified competition among developers and an increase in the development rate of new packages.¹⁹
In 1969 IBM introduced MagCards, magnetic cards that were slipped into a box attached to the typewriter and recorded text as it was typed on paper. The cards could then be used to recall and reprint text. These were useful mostly to companies which sent out large numbers of form letters. However, only about one page-worth of text could be stored on each card.²⁰
In 1972 Lexitron and Linolex developed a similar word processing system, but included video display screens and tape cassettes for storage. With the screen, text could be entered and corrected without having to produce a hard copy. Printing could be delayed until the writer was satisfied with the material.²¹
The floppy disk marked a new stage in the evolution of storage media. Developed by IBM in the early 1970s for use in data processing (that is, traditional number computation), it was soon adopted by the word processing industry.²² Vydec, in 1973, seems to have been the first manufacturer to produce a word processing system using floppy disks for storage. Previous storage media could only hold one or two pages of text, but the early disks were capable of holding 80 to 100 pages. This increased storage capacity permitted the creation and easy editing of multipage documents without the necessity of changing storage receptacles.²³
Floppy disks could also be used to hold programs. The most important advance in word processing was the change from 'hard wired' instructions built into the machinery to software on disks. When the programs were part of the equipment they were difficult to change and expensive to upgrade. Programs on disks could be updated more economically, since a rewritten program could be loaded into and used with the same hardware as the old one.²⁴
Before disk programs most word processing packages were 'dedicated' systems, which were bulky and expensive, and did not admit computing functions other than word processing.²⁵ Disk programs made it practical to develop packages for use with personal computers, first made available in completely assembled form in 1977.²⁶ Thus the separation of the software from the hardware also opened up the field to individuals. Word processing is now 'one of the most common general applications for personal computers.'²⁷
Over the next ten years many new features were introduced in the field. One important innovation was the development of spelling check and mailing list programs.²⁸ Another advance, introduced by Xerox in its Star Information System, allowed working on more than one document at a time on the same screen.²⁹
Some programs now even incorporate bookkeeping and inventory functions, combining word processing with data processing and completing the marriage of the word processor to the computer.³⁰ The combined field is known as information processing.³¹
The introduction and evolution of the specific word processing programs available today is not covered well in the literature. Authors seem to assume that their readers will automatically be familiar with recent developments, despite the fact that if they were they would not be buying the literature. WordStar, put out by Micropro International, has emerged as the industry standard in software packages, though others surpass it in one feature or another.³²
There are now more than sixty complete word processing systems on the market, and more than thirty software packages for use with various computers,* all with different capabilities and claims about their efficiency. These are listed in Appendix A. It was not possible to describe all their features without turning the appendix into a book; however, such descriptions may be found in the sources from which the list was compiled (see the notes). To partially remedy this lack, a list of features standard in most current word processing programs has been provided in Appendix B.

*The totals given here probably vastly underestimate the number actually available. [Back to Text]

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Appendix A: Currently Available
Word Processing Systems and Software.

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1. Complete Systems³³:

Note: dedicated systems are starred (*).

A. Available in Both Stand-Alone and Multiterminal Versions.

B. Available in Stand-Alone Version Only.

C. Available in Multiterminal Version Only.

D. Phototypesetters and Other Non-Standard Systems.

2. Software Packages³⁴:

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Appendix B: A List of Features Standard in
Most Current Word Processing Programs³⁵.

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• Wordwrap: automatic arrangement of text in lines of specified length without the necessity of touching the return key.
• Discretionary Hyphenation: option of inserting a hyphen to break a word that ends a line: the hyphen does not print if later editing moves the word to the middle of a line.
• Justification: automatic alignment of text to both the left and right margins.
• Adjustment: realignment of text to new margin and tab settings.
• Alignment: positioning text or numbers to specified margin and tab settings.
• Decimal Alignment: positioning columns of numbers with the decimal points vertically aligned.
• Indents: the setting of temporary margins within a document differing from the primary margins used.
• Centering text on a line.
• Insertion: the entry of new text within previously typed material without erasing the existing material.
• Overstriking: the substitution of new text for old by typing over the old text.
• Deletion: erasure of text from the screen, or of whole documents from the disk.
• Search and Replace: moving directly to specified words or parts of words within a document and replacing them with different words or word portions.
• Copying or Cutting: the duplication or moving of blocks of text within a document.
• Boilerplate: the separate storage and retrieval of blocks of text from which standard documents can be built.
• Pagination: automatic division of a document into pages of specified numbers of lines.
• Page Numbering: automatic sequential numbering of pages.
• Headers and Footers: option of creating standard blocks of text that will automatically appear at the top or bottom of each page in a document.
• Footnoting: automatic sequential numbering of footnotes and positioning of the footnotes at the bottom of their appropriate pages during pagination.
• Table of Contents and Index Generators. Programs that create these based on the text of a document.
• Form Letter Merging: automatic combining of a form letter with a mailing list to generate multiple copies of the letter with the different addresses and other variable information filled in.
• Automatic Spelling Checker and Corrector. Program that compares words in the text against an on-line dictionary, flagging items not found in the dictionary and offering alternative spellings and a means of correcting the errors.

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Notes:

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Note: see bibliography for full information on sources cited.

1. Price & Urban, page xxiii. [Back to text.]
2. Munday, page 4. [Back to text.]
3. Munday, page 4. [Back to text.]
4. Munday, pages 4-5, and Price & Urban, page xxi. [Back to text.]
5. Munday, page 5. [Back to text.]
6. Munday, page 5. [Back to text.]
7. Price & Urban, page xxi. [Back to text.]
8. Munday, page 5. [Back to text.]
9. Munday, page 6, and Price & Urban, page xxi. [Back to text.]
10. Munday, page 6. [Back to text.]
11. Munday, page 6, and Price & Urban, page xxi. [Back to text.]
12. Flores, pages 8-9, and Price & Urban, page xxi. [Back to text.]
13. Munday, page 6. [Back to text.]
14. Flores, page 11, Munday, pages 6-7, and Price & Urban, page xxi. [Back to text.]
15. Munday, pages 6-7, and Price & Urban, page xxi. [Back to text.]
16. Blissmer, page 66, and Munday, page 7. [Back to text.]
17. Munday, page 7. [Back to text.]
18. Blissmer, page 66. [Back to text.]
19. Munday, page 9, and Price & Urban, page xxii. [Back to text.]
20. Flores, page 12, and Price & Urban, page xxi. [Back to text.]
21. Flores, pages 12-13, and Price & Urban, page xxii. [Back to text.]
22. Flores, page 12. [Back to text.]
23. Price & Urban, page xxii. [Back to text.]
24. Munday, page 9, and Price & Urban, page xxii. [Back to text.]
25. Blissmer, page 66, and Price & Urban, page 458. [Back to text.]
26. Blissmer, page 427. [Back to text.]
27. Blissmer, page 438. [Back to text.]
28. Blissmer, page 438. [Back to text.]
29. Price & Urban, page xxiii. [Back to text.]
30. Price & Urban, page xxiv. [Back to text.]
31. Price & Urban, pages 120 and 466. [Back to text.]
32. McWilliams, page 167, and Marshak, page 137. [Back to text.]
33. Price & Urban, pages 274-402. [Back to text.]
34. McWilliams, pages 167-170, Marshak, pages 184-193, and Price & Urban, pages 403-433. [Back to text.]
35. Marshak, pages 194-198. [Back to text.]

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Annotated Bibliography:

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Note: Only book sources were used. I anticipated getting a lot of information out of computer journals, but they were poorly covered in the indexes.

1. Blissmer, Robert H. Computer Annual: An Introduction to Information Systems 1985-1986. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1985. Treatment of word processing is limited, since this book covers the whole computer field, but it gives a few items of information I did not find elsewhere. Contains an interesting chronology of 'The Evolution of Computer Systems,' illustrated with photographs.
2. Flores, Ivan. Word Processing Handbook. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1983. Deals mainly with the technology of word processing, explaining how the systems work and how to use them. A subsection of the introduction, 'The Evolution of Word Processing,' covers the history of the field from the same technical viewpoint. Its description of the development of the technology and what each system did is lucid and well illustrated with diagrams. Flores is weak on the dates the systems appeared and the names of their developers.
3. Marshak, Ronni T. Word Processing Software for the IBM PC. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985. A good overview of currently available word processing programs that can be used with the IBM personal computer, with ratings of each and comparisons of their features and prices.
4. McWilliams, Peter A. Word Processing on the KayPro: A Special Edition of The Word Processing Book For Owners and Prospective Owners of the KayPro II, 4 or 10. Los Angeles: Prelude Press, 1983. Includes a section entitled 'A Brief and No Doubt Inaccurate History of Word Processing.' If McWilliams had only added 'useless' to the title of the section he would have summed it up exactly. There is some actual history in the book, but rather than put it in the history section McWilliams has thoughtfully spread it throughout the text so you can't find it.
5. Munday, Marianne Forrester. Oportunities in Word Processing. Lincolnwood, Illinois: National Textbook Company, 1985. Includes a short chapter entitled 'History and Development of Word Processing,' the best discussion of the subject I found. Gives little on the evolution of specific software systems.
6. Price, Jonathan, and Urban, Linda Pinneau. The Definitive Word-Processing Book. New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1984. Includes a brief history of word processing in the introduction, comparable to the one in the Munday book, although shorter and generally less exact in the information given. Weak on developments since 1973. Gives little on the evolution of specific software systems. Includes an appendix similar in nature to the Marshak book, not as well organized, but covering the whole range of word processing systems rather than just those usable with the IBM PC.

—BPK, 12/13/86, rv.3/12/98.

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A Brief History of Word Processing (Through 1986)

1st web edition posted 2/14/1996
(updated 5/27/1997).
2nd web edition posted 3/12/1998
(updated 5/15/2008).

Published by Fleabonnet Press.
© 1986-2008 by Brian Kunde.

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  • 8.1Find and Replace Text
• 9Activity

Editing

To edit a document is to change the way it appears: this can be by moving and inserting text, deleting text or creating and removing paragraphs.

The following functions are used when editing an existing document or text you have entered. The procedure column outlines the commands you will need to carry out in order to apply the editing feature.

Editing Function	Procedure to use
Inserting	Click the I-Beam cursor at the point to insert, and type in the text to be inserted.
Overtyping	Double click OVR on the Status Bar at the bottom of the screen. Type text. Double click OVR to end overtyping or press Insert on the keyboard to begin overtyping, press Insert again to end overtyping.
New Paragraph	Press the Enter key twice after the end of the previous text.
Join Paragraphs	Place cursor at the end of the first paragraph and press Delete twice or place cursor at the beginning of the second paragraph and press Backspace twice. Press the Spacebar.
Delete to right of cursor	Press the Delete key. (Ctrl + Delete deletes a word to the right).
Delete to left of cursor	Press the Backspace key. (Ctrl + Backspace deletes a word to the left).
Delete a blank line	Place the cursor on the blank line and press Delete.
Insert a blank line	Place the cursor where you want the new line and press Enter.
Undo last action	Click the Undo button or click the Edit menu then select Undo.
Redo last “Undo”	Click the Redo button to redo the last “Undo” or click the Edit menu then select Redo.
Typing Replaces Selection	Select (highlight) text and type in new text.
Transpose text (swap)	Select the second part of the text to be swapped. Click the Edit menu, then click Cut. Click the cursor where you want the text to be placed. Click the Edit menu, then click Paste.

Spell Check a whole document

The Spell checker is great for picking up errors but don’t rely on it entirely. A word may be spelt correctly but still not be correct e.g. here/hear, went/want, their/there. It is still very important to proofread (check) your document before printing.

Please note: the following tutorial will open in a new window/tab. When you have finished the tutorial, simply close the window/tab and you'll return to this page. Before you go on, please work through the following tutorial: Don't forget to watch the 3-minute video on page 2!

1. Click on Customize Quick Access Toolbar and add Spelling & Grammar
2. Click on .
   The Spelling and Grammar dialog box will appear and the cursor will move to the first incorrect word and highlight the word.
   
3. The spell check feature automatically gives you some options down the right hand side of the dialog box.

This is what each option means:

Change

When the word is spelt incorrectly click on the correct spelling from the list of suggestions, then click on Change.

Ignore Once

Click on Ignore Once when you know the word is spelt correctly but is not in the dictionary and you are not likely to use it again e.g. an odd place name

Add to Dictionary

When you know the word is spelt correctly and you are likely to use it again e.g. your name, highlight the “incorrect” word and click on Add to Dictionary. The highlighted word will be added to your own Custom Dictionary rather than the main Word dictionary.

Spell check exercise

Open the page called Words. Follow the instructions there. Create a new Word document and paste in the text you copied from the Words page. Save the document as Words. Use either of the two methods outlined on the previous pages for checking the Spelling and Grammar of the document. Change the line spacing of the paragraph to double (2.0) Print Preview your document to see hot i looks, then close Print Preview Turn the Show / Hide Feature on Justify the document (alignment) Close the document saving the changes you made

Editing exercise 1

Open the page called Leisure. Follow the instructions there. Create a new Word document and paste in the text you copied from the Leisure page. Save the document as Leisure Time. Follow the instructions as indicated below to change the document: Check the spelling and grammar of the document. Save and close the document

Editing exercise 2

Open the page called Heart at work. Follow the instructions there. Create a new Word document and paste in the text you copied from the Heart at work page. Save the document as Heart at work. Follow the instructions as indicated below to change the document: Check the spelling and grammar of the document. Save and close the document

Moving and copying blocks of text

You can change the order of words, sentences and paragraphs to improve the structure of your document. When moving or copying text, the text (plus any space required) must be selected.

When you copy or move text, the text retains the character formatting e.g. bold, font style. If the copied or moved text includes the paragraph mark ¶, the text retains the paragraph formatting e.g. line spacing, alignment.

To move text

Cut the text from one place in the document and paste it into another.

Word Processing Document Types

To copy text

Copy it from one place in the document and paste a copy of it into another.

Please note: the following tutorial will open in a new window/tab. When you have finished the tutorial, simply close the window/tab and you'll return to this page. This online tutorial includes a useful guide to moving and copying text:

Moving paragraphs exercise

Open the page called Blue Lake. Follow the instructions there Create a new Word document and paste in the text you copied from the Blue Lake page. Save the document as Blue Lake. Move the paragraphs as indicated below and ensure that only one space is left between each paragraph: Save the changes and close the document.

Find and Replace Text

The Find facility allows you to quickly find text and/or formats when editing a document. For example, say you find a mistake in a printed document, instead of scrolling through the document yourself; you can use Find and go straight to the mistake.

Find Text

1. Go to Home Tab ⇒ Editing group
2. Click on Find. (The keyboard shortcut key is Ctrl F)
3. The Find dialog box will appear:
   
4. Key the text to be found in the Find what field
5. Click Find Next

Replace Text

Word Processing Document Revision Techniques

The Replace facility allows you to replace existing text with other text and/or formats. For example, say you keyed in Club Med throughout a document and you wanted to replace it with Holiday Club, you tell Word to do this once and it happens throughout the document.

1. Go to Home Tab ⇒ Editing group
2. Click on Replace
3. The Find and Replace dialog box will appear:
   
4. Key the text to be found and the text you would like it to be replaced with
5. Click on Find Next - the first occurrence will be highlighted
6. Click on Replace
7. Repeat until all occurrences have been replaced and this appears: Click on OK
8. Click on Close in dialog box

Both Find and Replace save lots of time!

Extra resources

Please note: the following tutorial will open in a new window/tab. When you have finished the tutorial, simply close the window/tab and you'll return to this page. This tutorial is for an older version of Word (2003) so some items will look a little different - but the principles are the same:

Replace text automatically

This time we will replace all occurrences automatically

1. Press Ctrl + H to open dialog box.
2. Next to Find what, enter the text to find : our.
3. Next to Replace with, enter the new text: the
4. Fill in options – whole word only, search all
5. Close options - click on Less
6. Click on Replace All
7. When this appears, click on OK or press Enter
8. Click on Close to close the dialog box

Replace standard text with formatted text

1. Press Ctrl + H
2. Key text to find: Holiday Club. Key text to replace with: Holiday Club
3. Click on More
4. Choose Format ⇒ Font
   
5. The Font dialog box will appear: choose the Font, Font style and Size, then click on OK
6. Click on Less and the dialog box will close up
7. Check that the format is under the Replace with text, not the Find what text:
   

   Note: If formatting appears under Find what, this is a mistake:
   

   To fix this, click on No Formatting and redo making sure you are in Replace with:
   

8. Click on Replace all
9. When replacement has finished, a dialog box will appear. Press Enter or click on OK.
10. Print preview – Oh!!! the font size was too small with this font. So Press Ctrl + H again, click on Replace with text Holiday Club
11. Change the Replace with font format to 18
12. Replace all, check your Preview, then close the Preview.
13. Save the changes to the document and close it

Find and replace exercise

Locate and open the file Words you created earlier Use the Find and Replace tool to change the following words: Change France ⇒ Germany Change deep red ⇒ scarlet Change limpid ⇒ lifeless Save the document as Words V2.

Corrections

Note: When you have finished with this section, you can use your browser's Back button to return to the page you were viewing.

The following correction signs are commonly used to indicate alterations in a document:

In a new document, enter the following text: Now, referring to the correction signs above, edit the document and make the following corrections:

Word Processing Software Free