A WYSIWYG word processor in Python
Details
- External ID
- 47722011
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- A WYSIWYG word processor in Python
- Website domain
- codeberg.org
- Launched
- April 10, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 91
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.8817480719794345
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.
Description
Hi all,Finding a good data structure for a word processor is a difficult problem. My notebook diaries on the problem go back 25 years when I was frustrated with using Word for my diploma thesis - it was slow and unstable at that time. I ended up getting pretty hooked on the problem.Right now I’m taking a professional break and decided to finally use the time to push these ideas further, and build MiniWord — a WYSIWYG word processor in Python.My goal is to have a native, non-HTML-based editor that stays simple, fast, and is hackable. So far I am focusing on getting the fundamentals right. What is working yet is:- Real WYSIWYG editing (no HTML layer, no embedded browser) with styles, images and tables.- Clean, simple file format (human-readable, diff-friendly, git-friendly, AI-friendly)- Markdown support- Support for Python-pluginsThings that I found:- B-tree structures are perfect for holding rich text data- A simple text-based file format is incredibly useful — you can diff documents, version them, and even process them with AI tools quite naturallyWhat I’d love feedback on:- Where do you see real use cases for something like this?- What would be missing for you to take it seriously as a tool or platform?- What kinds of plugins or extensions would actually be worth building?Happy about any thoughts — positive or critical. Greetings
Enrichment
- Theme
- native desktop apps and utilities
- Vertical
- Horizontal
- Function
- Dev tools
- Audience
- Developer
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Hobby / open-source project
- Normalized one-liner
- wysiwyg word processor in python
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
No Building a custom WYSIWYG word processor from scratch requires intricate internal document models (piece tables, tree structures), custom font rendering, line breaking, and pagination algorithms.
What it would actually take: A production WYSIWYG word processor requires custom document data structures (e.g., rope/piece-table backed tree hierarchy), hyphenation/Knuth-Plass line-breaking engines, and complex pagination layouts. The stack would typically be Rust/C++ or high-performance Python (PyQt/Skia/HarfBuzz) with tight memory and font rasterization pipelines. Deep expertise in computational typography, text layout engines, and bidirectional undo/redo transactional state is essential.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: WordGrinder (terminal-based word processor), Typst (markup language with WYSIWYG editors like Typesetter), Microsoft Word, WordPerfect
Concerns raised: Dark mode GTK theme breaks UI menus, Windows installation complex, rendering quality lower, slow startup, Plugin import/export module missing errors, Markdown format variations and incompatibilities hard to remember
Feature requests: Support for WordGrinder .wg file format, Better Windows optimization and performance, Cross-platform native widget support improvements
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 71 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #12 of 72 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 158 days after the earliest competitor.
- Word42, a wordprocessor inspired by MS Word and Abiword · hn · 2026-09-04 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- TERMy · hn · 2026-09-04 · 225 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- Verso · hn · 2026-06-13 · 36 upvotes · similarity 0.41
- python-data-parser · github · 2026-09-27 · 8 upvotes · similarity 0.41
- JavaScript-first, open-source WYSIWYG DOCX editor · hn · 2026-02-09 · 130 upvotes · similarity 0.40
- Word Machine · ph · 2026-09-12 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.40
- I built Wool, a lightweight distributed Python runtime · hn · 2026-03-14 · 15 upvotes · similarity 0.39
- JustHTML · hn · 2025-12-02 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.39
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.
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