Editing HTML editor (section)

=== Difficulties in achieving WYSIWYG ===
A given HTML document will have an inconsistent appearance on various [[Computing platform|platforms]] and computers for several reasons:

;Different browsers and applications will render the same markup differently.
:The same page may display slightly differently, by example, in [[Google Chrome|Chrome]], [[Safari (web browser)|Safari]], [[Microsoft Edge|Edge]], [[Internet Explorer]] and [[Firefox]] on a high-resolution screen, but it will look very different in the perfectly valid text-only [[Lynx (browser)|Lynx]] browser.  It needs to be rendered differently again on a [[Personal digital assistant|PDA]], an [[Digital television|internet-enabled television]] and on a [[mobile phone]]. Usability in a [[Voice browser|speech]] or [[braille]] browser, or via a [[Screen reader|screen-reader]] working with a conventional browser, will place demands on entirely different{{clarify|date=October 2020}} aspects of the underlying HTML. All an author can do is suggest an appearance.
;Web browsers, like all computer software, have [[computer bug|bugs]]
:They may not conform to current [[Web standards|standards]].  It is hopeless to try to design Web pages around all of the common browsers' current bugs: each time a new version of each browser comes out, a significant proportion of the [[World Wide Web]] would need re-coding to suit the new bugs and the new fixes.  It is generally considered much wiser to design to standards, staying away from 'bleeding edge' features until they settle down, and then wait for the browser developers to catch up to your pages, rather than the other way round.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.w3.org/People/Bos/DesignGuide/designguide.html |title=An essay on W3C's design principles |publisher=W3C |access-date=2013-10-23 |date=  6 Mar 2003 |first=Bert |last=Bos}}</ref> For instance, no one can argue that CSS is still 'cutting edge' as there is now widespread support available in common browsers for all the major features,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/#browsers |title=Cascading Style Sheets |publisher=W3C |access-date=2013-10-23}}</ref> even if many WYSIWYG and other editors have not yet entirely caught up.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/#editors |title=Cascading Style Sheets |publisher=W3C |access-date=2013-10-23}}</ref>
;A single visual style can represent multiple semantic meanings
:Semantic meaning, derived from the underlying structure of the HTML document, is important for search engines and also for various accessibility tools. On paper we can tell from context and experience whether bold text represents a title, or emphasis, or something else. But it is very difficult to convey this distinction in a WYSIWYG editor. Simply making a piece of text bold in a WYSIWYG editor is not sufficient to tell the reader *why* the text is bold – what the boldness represents semantically.
;Modern web sites are rarely constructed in a way that makes WYSIWYG useful
:Modern web sites typically use a [[content management system]] or some other [[template processor]]-based means of constructing pages on the fly using content stored in a database. Individual pages are never stored in a filesystem as they may be designed and edited in a WYSIWYG editor, thus some form of abstracted template-based layout is inevitable, invalidating one of the main benefits of using a WYSIWYG editor.