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WYSIWYG

In computing, WYSIWYG ( ; what you see is what you get) is software that allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed document, web page, or slide presentation.

Version
v1 · 2026-09-28 · History
Domain-specific #
12922
Domain group
Professional & Organizational Practice
Origin domain
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
Subdomains
User Interface Design, Document Editing → Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

Core Idea

WYSIWYG is treated here as the recurring computerscienceandinformation identity summarized by this source-grounded definition: In computing, WYSIWYG ( ; what you see is what you get) is software that allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed document, web page, or slide presentation. In computing, WYSIWYG ( ; what you see is what you get) is software that allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed document.

Scope of Application

  • History. In 1983, the Weekly Reader advertised its Stickybear educational software with the slogan "what you see is what you get", with photographs of its Apple II graphics, but home computers of.

  • History. These applications typically use an arbitrary markup language to define the codes/tags.

  • History. The use of markup tags and codes remains popular today in some applications due to their ability to store complex formatting information.

  • History. In late 1978, in parallel with but independent of the work at Xerox PARC, Hewlett-Packard developed and released the first commercial WYSIWYG software application for producing overhead slides (or what today.

  • History. Thus, while a Macintosh monitor has the same 640 × 480 resolution as a PC, a screen is fixed at 832 × 624 rather than the 800 × 600 resolution used by PCs.

Clarity

A clear use of WYSIWYG names the carrier, the operative relation, and the conditions under which the source treats the identity as present. The minimal definition is In computing, WYSIWYG ( ; what you see is what you get) is software that allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed document, web page, or slide presentation.

Manages Complexity

WYSIWYG compresses multiple computerscienceandinformation details into a stable diagnostic relation. The source shows both the central mechanism—pC Magazine wrote in 1988 that despite "heroic steps" by many companies, IBM PC-based word processors "are still unsatisfying" compared to those on Macintosh.—and the practical consequence—thus, while a Macintosh monitor has the same 640 × 480 resolution as a PC, a screen is fixed at 832 × 624 rather than the 800 ×.

Abstract Reasoning

  1. Type the carrier. Identify the computerscienceandinformation entities to which the claim applies.
  2. State the relation. Use the source-grounded identity: In computing, WYSIWYG ( ; what you see is what you get) is software that allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed document, web page, or slide presentation.
  3. Check operation and conditions. In this environment there is very little distinction between text editors and word processors.
  4. Demand recognition evidence.

Knowledge Transfer

Within the home domain. Knowledge about WYSIWYG transfers literally when a new case preserves the same carrier type, relation, and recognition test. In 1983, the Weekly Reader advertised its Stickybear educational software with the slogan "what you see is what you get", with photographs of its Apple II graphics, but home computers of the 1970s and early 1980s lacks the graphics capabilities necessary to display WYSIWYG documents, and such.

Neighborhood in Abstraction Space

WYSIWYG sits in a sparse region of the domain-specific corpus (95th percentile for distinctiveness): few abstractions share its structure, so a faithful description tends to retrieve it precisely.

Family — Phonological Classification & Sound Change (8 abstractions)

Nearest neighbors

Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-10-08