Photo by Bram Souffreau

Commonly used to publish content to the web, “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) editors can be a great source of end-user frustration.  “It looks like Word, so why doesn’t it behave like Word?” is a common question users may ask themselves and the answer is quite simple- WYSIWYG is not Word.

Microsoft’s Word is designed to publish to a printer while WYSIWYG is designed to publish to the web.  These are two very different concepts and knowing the difference between the two is the key to finally putting an end to your WYSIWYG frustrations.

Web-based content is written in HTML code and it is the WYSIWYG editor’s job to translate your formatted text into a code that is readable by a multitude of browsers.  By virtue of the fact that the editor itself must function across many different browsers, what we see may not always be what we get.

Have you ever noticed that your a2z WYSIWYG editor has an HTML tab?  Perhaps you have clicked on this tab and have seen gargled text and commands within carats (<>) only to click back to the preview pane where you feel more comfortable.  Understanding the basic code, that delivers your formatting to your audience, is the first step to ensuring that what you see is what you get.  HTML does not have to be scary.

Ready to dive a bit deeper? Click here to read more.

This post contributed by Anna Ferris, staff Project Manager at a2z Inc.