Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Vi is a text editor, not a word processor.

The important difference (for me) is that a word processor understands proportional font geometries and physical page dimensions, so I can layout the page interactively. For example, I have some text that I want to fit on a single page of A4 in Helvetica 12pt, and I'm willing to edit it until it fits.

I think that's a really hard problem to solve in a text editor, but it's trivial in a word processor.

I also use WordPerfect for DOS, because it's a full-featured word processor that you can use in a terminal (I think the author of this site uses it in graphical mode, but I prefer to use it in an xterm).

Here's a screenshot, notice how WordPerfect knows where the text will wrap.

https://twitter.com/taviso/status/1303841149421891584



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: