Since its founding, virtually all projects at the LRC have involved processing natural language texts with the aid of computers.
The principal activities of the Center at present focus on Indo-European languages and comprise historical study, lexicography, and web-based teaching; staff members engage in several independent but often complementary projects in these fields using a variety of software, almost all of it developed in-house.
From its early years to the present, the LRC has mounted a number of smaller projects resulting in the publication of significant works relating to Indo-European languages and/or their common ancestor, Proto-Indo-European.
A prominent example of the LRC using computers to prepare texts for print publication is the book by Winfred P. Lehmann, A Gothic Etymological Dictionary (Leiden: Brill, 1986).
The final print-ready version was produced with the aid of a laser printer (exotic new technology, in those days) using, for the various languages included in the entries, approximately 500 special characters—many of them designed at the Center.