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WYSIWYG v WYSIWYM




I was debating whether to actually write on this topic or not because I'm not sure I have much to say in the matter. But I decided to anyway because I wanted to.

There are two types of word editing styles: WYSIWYM and WYSIWYG.

They're both obviously acronyms, otherwise it would mean humanity was unstable enough to create humans who thought words like WYSIWYM and WYSIWYG were okay for human speech.

WYSIWYG: What you see is what you get

This is the one that most people are familiar with. You type in something, and when you publish or export that text, it's gonna look exactly the way you typed it in (hence the name). Stuff like MS Word, Google Docs, Apple Pages, LibreOffice Writer are all WYSIWYG editors/softwares.

WYSIWYG is more widely known compared to WYSIWYM because it gives you an easy view of what you're typing in. You can add images and format the document while you type in the content.

WYSIWYM: What you see is what you mean

This one is a bit different. When you type in something, you use special characters to format them instead of the usual way of formatting stuff. The document looks very technical, and you only see the final publish-ready form when you either export the document or have live-preview enabled.

I'm gonna be compeltely honest, I have no idea what examples I can give for WYSIWYM softwares/editors. I've tried researching and learning about what classifies as WYSIWYM, and I still can't confidently say I know what is what. So I'm just gonna leave that up in the air for you to figure out (if you're interested, that is.)

I think Markdown counts as WYSIWYM, but I'm not 100% sure.
If you don't know what markdown is, it's basically this:

# Heading 1
## Heading 2
### Heading 3

Those hashes are special characters we use to let the editor know that we want those lines to be in the 'Heading' format.  

Essentially WYSIWYM follows the principle of separating styling and formatting from the content. Usually, with WYSIWYM, you will be able to reference another file that will contain all the formatting rules and options and use that to let the document processor know how it should generate the style and format for the final published document. Most people that use WYSIWYM will have a template style file created that will be used for almost every document they write, to save them the time of individually formatting each document. 

The reason why WYSIWYM is less heard of is because it's usually the stuff that's used behind-the-scenes. Most people in the academic field usually use WYSIWYM because it allows for more flexibility and a more streamlined workflow. For the average person, WYSIWYM wouldn't do much. But for those that write for a living, or are in the habit of writing constantly, WYSIWYM allows for them to set aside the formatting options and solely focus on the content.

So yeah, that's basically it. I'm still learning about all these things, so don't take anything I've said here as absolute fact, because I might be wrong. If I am, I'll be sure to come back and edit this part out. :D 






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