What-you-see-is-what-you-get, or WYSIWYG, is a system where what is seen on a screen is exactly what will be printed on a page. This is in contrast to systems where an author writes code that must be compiled or interpreted before it can be seen as text on a page.
What-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) is a book and publishing industry term meaning that the text and images in a document are displayed on screen in the same way as they will appear in print.
WYSIWYG software is used by authors and editors to create and format print documents. It is also used by typesetters, layout artists, and cover designers to produce camera-ready artwork.
WYSIWYG is an alternative to traditional typesetting, in which text and images are created separately and then combined into a final document. In WYSIWYG, everything is created in one place, and the finished document can be previewed on screen before it is printed.
There are several advantages to using WYSIWYG software. It is easier and faster to create a print-ready document using WYSIWYG than it is to set type manually or to use a word processing program to create a document that will be sent to a typesetter.
While Wysiwyg is not perfect, it is a major improvemment over its predecessor, the text-based interface. Wysiwyg allows users to see what their document will look like as they are creating it, which is a significant advantage. For example, when creating a document with a lot of graphics, the user can see how the text will flow around the graphics, and can make necessary adjustments on the fly. This is a big time saver, and can help to avoid errors.
Another advantage of Wysiwyg is that it is much easier to learn and use than a text-based interface. For many users, Wysiwyg is the only way to go.
So, while Wysiwyg is not perfect, it is a major improvement over its predecessor, and has many advantages.