Word processor program

The first known electronic word processor program was Electric Pencil, released in 1976, as a tool for programmers to write documentation and manuals for their code.

Electric pencil featured basic formatting and navigation, and supported external devices such as cassette recorders and printers.

Several other word processing programs were released shortly after, including EasyWriter and WordStar.

Inspired by the success of WordStar, many competitors began to release their offerings, including WordPerfect in 1979, MultiMate in 1982, and Microsoft Word in 1983.

With the emergence of the internet, different cloud-based word processor programs emerged such as Google Docs and then later Collabora Online and Microsoft Office on the web which enable people to relatively more easily work remotely and collaboratively.