Word processing programs have evolved a great deal from the early days of computing. A modern word processing program can do many things besides simply handling text.
Since the early '90s, most word processors feature a WYSIWYG interface. WYSIWYG (pronounced "whizeewig") stands for "What You See Is What You Get." This means that the screen will look reasonably like the finished document. This feature is important because the real strength of word processors is in the formatting they allow. Formatting is the manipulation of characters, paragraphs, pages, and documents. Most of the word processor features we will discuss below are various ways of formatting the text, or changing the way it looks on the page. Formatting was possible before WYSIWYG, but it required more imagination from the writer, because you couldn't see the effects of the formatting until you printed out the document.
Modern word processors also are designed to have numerous features for advanced users. Since a large portion of most people's computer time is spent with a word processing program, it is important that these programs have features to make editing documents easier. Some of the additional features that one can expect to find on a modern word processor are spelling and grammar checkers, ability to handle graphics, tables, and mathematical formulas, and outline editors. The word processing market is a very competitive one, and the major software companies are always competing to have the word processor with the most advanced features available.
Software companies are also interested in making their programs as easy to learn as possible. With this goal in mind, most word processors come with tutorial programs, extensive on-line help, and clear menus.
These full featured word processors sound wonderful, and they are. You might wonder if they have any drawbacks. Of course they do. Word processing programs as have been described often cost hundreds of dollars. The cost seems prohibitive for something that doesn't even have a physical presence! Many of the features of full-fledged word processors are not needed by casual users. Sometimes the sheer number of unneeded features can be intimidating. Using a full-power word processor just to write a couple of letters a week is like killing flies with a chain saw. You simply might not need that much power to do the job properly. High end word processing programs almost always save documents in special proprietary codes rather than as ASCII code. This means the programs can save all the special formatting that ASCII cannot handle (like font sizes, columns, graphics, and so on.) It also means that if you write a document in WordPerfect, you may not be able to read it in Word. Even different versions of the same program might not be able to read each other's documents directly. There are ways you can work around this problem, but you should know it exists.