WYSIWYMG

WYSIWYMG

What You See Is What You Might Get. This is a variation on WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), reflecting that the layout and appearance within a WYSIWYG editor is not always the same as that when viewed outside of the editor.

WYSIWYMG is often used as a negative comment when discussing WYSIWYG editors. It does accurately reflect that whilst WYSIWYG editors can generally provide a good approximation of the final appearance of a document they cannot guarantee it.

For example, the appearance of a web page can vary depending on which browser it is being viewed in. So if a website is edited in a WYSIWYG editor (of which there are plenty) then even if its appearance in the editor matches exactly the appearance within one browser, because of variation between browsers it cannot guarantee to match the appearance in all browsers. Thus WYSIWYG web editors could be classified as WYSIWYMG.

Another example are word processed documents. Most modern word processors provide a WYSIWYG capability. A common failing however when moving documents between PCs is the assumption that the fonts originally used will still be available. If a document