Hangul (word processor)

Hangul (also known as Hangul Word Processor or HWP) is a proprietary word processing application published by the South Korean company Hancom Inc.. Hangul's specialized support for the Korean written language has gained it widespread use in South Korea, especially by the government.

The software's name is derived from the Korean word Hangul (Korean: 한글, hangeul) for the alphabet used to write Korean.

Document formats

Hangul saves documents in HWP format, with the filename extension *.hwp. It is one of the standard document formats of the South Korean government. It is widely used for a number of reasons: Koreans require DTP level layout features to word processor, and its unique program can process Middle Korean.

HWP files, up to the versions created with Hangul '97, can be opened with OpenOffice.org (version 4.1.1 or earlier^[1]) or LibreOffice. However, files created with later editions of Hangul, including Hangul Wordian, Hangul 2002, Hangul 2005 and Hangul 2007 cannot be opened with OpenOffice or LibreOffice, due to the major changes in the document structure. These later versions of Hangul do not provide support for opening and saving of files in Microsoft Word format, but users are not necessarily aware of this. Consequently, Korean Hangul users may often send files to non-Koreans in .hwp format, not realizing the recipient will be unable to open such files.^[2]

Hangul was intended in 2009 to gain support for reading and writing of Office Open XML and OpenDocument files.^[3]

The HWP binary format specification has been published online free by Hancom on June 29, 2010.^[4][5]

Hangul Office in English

Haansoft released "Office 2010 SE" which is an English Edition of Hancom office that includes the following applications:

• Hanword is a word processor for optimal word processing.
• Hancell is a spreadsheet Software for efficient data processing and analysis.
• Hanshow is a presentation software.
• Hancom Office

Hangul Viewer

Haansoft offers a freely available Hangul document viewer program called "Hancom Office Viewer 2010 SE" (한컴오피스 뷰어 2010 SE).

Haansoft near bankruptcy

Haansoft was on the verge of bankruptcy after the release of its 2002 version, due to the widespread use of illegal copies. A campaign to support the development of Korean software and promote the purchase of legal copies of Hangul allowed Haansoft to recover.^[6]

Versions

Hangul has many versions, the latest of which is Hangul 2014 for Windows, Hangul 2008 Linux for Linux, and Hangul 2006 for macOS.

Previous versions have included:

MS-DOS

Hangul 0.9, 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 (1989)

Hangul 1.2L, 1.3L (1990)

Hangul 1.5, 1.51, 1.52,1.52D (1991)

Hangul 2.0 Pro/Basic (1992)

Hangul 2.1 Pro/Basic/Test/Little (1993)

Hangul 2.5 (1994)

Hangul 3.0 (1995)

Windows

Hangul 3.0, 3.0a, 3.0b (1995)

Hangul 96, International, Japanese (1996)

Hangul 97, 97 strengthen, 815 special edition (1998)

Hangul Wordian, Hangul for Kids (2000)

Hangul 2002 (2001, widely used for government e-document system)

Hangul 2004 (2003)

Hangul 2005 (2004)

Hangul 2007 (2006)

Hangul 2010 (2010) ^[7]

Hancom Office 2010 SE(English Edition)

Hangul 2014 (2013)

Classic Mac OS

Hangul 96, 97 (1998)

macOS

Hangul 2006 (2006) : PPC binary

Unix

Hangul X 1.0, X 3.0 (1995)

Linux

Hangul X R4 (1999, bundled in Mizi Linux 1 and 1.1)

Hangul X R5 (2000, included in Hancom Office 2)

Hangul 2008 Linux (2008, included in Hancom Office 2008 Linux)

References

External links

• Official website