What is the difference between a word processor and a text editor?

Question

Could I have some examples of the differences, please?

Answer 1

The major distinction, in my mind, is the concept of a paragraph as versus lines of words. The first word processors, such as WordStar, differed from text editors by being able to automatically wrap words from one line to the next. Before that, the user had to do the same thing manually or leave some very awkward-looking lines.



There are many more differences today, but in my mind, that was the tip-over point. If it didn't have word wrap, it wasn't a word processor.



Hope that helps.

Answer 2

A text editor (NotePad, for example) just edits text, no special features. A word processor (WordPad, for example), on the other hand, offers a number of features for text manipulation besides simple editing. These features include font selection and sizing inside a document; the ability to modify text to be bold, italicized, underlined, or colored; indenting and formatting options, adding graphics or other page decorations; and so on.



There are fancy text editors with extra features (EditPadPro comes to mind), but they still (usually) only output plain text. Word processors like the free AbiWord or OpenOffice.org can be used to create or edit simple ("flat") text files, but it's overkill.



I often create a text-file in a text editor, then load it into a word processor to "pretty it up"--conversely, when I copy-and-paste from a word-processor DOC- or RTF-file, I often paste it into a text editor first to strip out any fancy text formatting that might get in the way--in fact, I always keep an instance of a text editor open for quick notes or a copy-and-paste repository.



~~ ScienceMikey

Answer 3

There are text editors (e.g. Emacs, Vim) that probably have more features than any word processor out there. And text editors can edit text in more than just ASCII, Emacs, for example, will happily edit UTF-8.



I think the key difference is WYSIWYG, or "What you see is what you get." Text editors are not concerned with what the text looks like, indeed, plain text can't look like anything at all.



In a word processor like MS Word, Abi Word, or Open Office Writer, you are at least somewhat concerned with how text will look when it is printed out, or even viewed on the screen. Since word processors are concerned with what text looks like, they must store extra information about the text. This metadata must be stored somewhere. A telltale sign is that text editors will produce ".txt" files, but word processors will produce things like ".doc", ".docx", or ".rtf" files. These files store extra information alongside the text that says things like "this text is red", "this text should be indented" and so on.

Answer 4

A text editor, like notepad, provides the ability to create simple files with no formatting. It is straight ASCII text in the file. Any formatting done with notepad actually affects all of the text and all files.



Word processors (like MS Word) allow you to create files containing documents, where characters, words, sentences, lines, etc. all can have their own specialized and separate format characteristics. You can embed objects (like pictures, spreadsheets, etc.) into a word processor document. Basically the word processor allows you to create fancy and sophisticated documents

Answer 5

Word Processor --> Microsoft Word or Wordpad

Text Editor --> Notepad







The difference please read the definiton at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_editor