Many people who buy and use computers do not know (and do not want to know) about programming. They use computers to perform certain tasks more easily and efficiently, making use of productivity software written by expert programmers. Word processors, spreadsheets and database management systems are examples of this kind of software.

Word processing is the use of computer technology to create, manipulate, and print text materials like letters, manuscripts, etc. If one does not want to do anything other than word processing with the computer, it may be a good idea to buy a dedicated word processing system, that is, a microcomputer with I/O devices and special software designed especially for this single task. On the other hand, if word processing is only one of the things you want to accomplish with your computer, you should obtain a general-purpose computer and separately buy a good word processing software package (a 'word processor') for it.

In the old days, what the user of the word processor saw on the screen and what actually got printed on the paper were usually quite different from each other, since monitor technology was not very advanced back then. New word processors are much closer to the ideal of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), that is, the user sees the words on the screen (more or less) exactly as they will appear on paper.

Microsoft Word and WordPerfect are among today's most popular general-purpose word processors. People with very specialized word processing needs (like movie scriptwriters and musicians) can use specialized word processors designed with their domains in mind.

The nice things about using a word processor instead of a typewriter are:

-You can easily go back and correct your mistakes without having to retype everything.

-You can move or copy huge pieces of text from one part of the manuscript to another using a few simple commands.

-Word processors have 'search' and 'replace' capabilities; you can let the computer search for all the occurrences of a particular word in a big document, and, if you wish, replace it with something else.

-They allow you to create headers on top of the pages and footnotes very easily.

-You can arrange the area that your text will cover on the paper, the amount of space that will be left between consecutive lines or paragraphs, etc.

-You can use any one of a great number of available typefaces.A typefaceis a set of text characters that share a common design. For example, most of this text is in one particular typeface, but this clause is in the Courier typeface.As you see, you can also manipulate the size (called point size) of your characters. A typeface in a particular point size is referred to as a font, for example, this sentence was prepared in 11-point Courier font, although the browser you are using may not give a perfect representation.

-You can use spelling checkers in the word processors to check if your text contains any words which may be misspelled. Ideally, one needs a spelling checker for each language that one will type in. A spelling checker for Turkish has been developed by our university's Computer Engineering Department.

-Good word processors enable the automatic creation of Table of Contents and Index pages for documents if 'tags' indicating which words are to be included in these have been put by the user.

You are encouraged to experiment with the word processors available in the Computer Center to create nice-looking documents of your own.

Desktop publishing systems are one step ahead of word processors in the sense that they allow the user to have much more control over what will appear on the printed page, and they contain special hardware devices and programs like page-makeup software which attempt to produce a document which looks like the output of a professional printer's press. These systems also allow the neat incorporation of pictures into the documents.