What does it do?

This chapter and the following one, ‘How does it do it?’ assume a stand-alone configuration consisting of keyboard, VDU displaying 80 characters wide, central processor with floppy disks, and a letter-quality printer. The system is either a dedicated word processor or computer with a ‘user-friendly’ word processing software package. It is not practicable to cope with the many and varied WP packages in great detail, but an attempt has been made to indicate where alternative methods are likely to be used. The intention is to state in broad outline what might be expected from a word processor in terms of functions and ability. The actual operation of the equipment is covered in the next chapter