HWP: Korea's National Word Processor, Will It Continue to Be?

It's a program that every Korean knows, but no one who isn't Korean knows. That's HWP. The official name of the program can only be written as ‘ᄒᆞᆫ글’. Instead of the ‘ㅏ’ in ‘한’, it uses the arae-a (ᆞ), an old Hangul vowel, which modern people don't even know how to pronounce. The developer officially asked people to call it ‘Arae-a Hangul,’ but since that was too long, it was usually called ‘Araehangul’ (a name that doesn't really make sense). When writing, it's sometimes written as ‘Han/Gul’.

The developer also went back and forth with the English name. It was ‘Hangul and Computer Hangul’, then ‘Haansoft Hangul’, then ‘Hancom Office Hanword’, then ‘Hancom Office Hwp’, and now it's just called ‘HWP’.

HWP is also the file extension for files created with this program. It's simply an abbreviation for ‘Hangul Word Processor’. While it can also refer to the file extension, as is common, we'll just call the program ‘HWP’ here.

The Global Word Processor Market and Korea's Unique Situation

The global word processor market has long been dominated by Microsoft (MS) Word. Recently, the cloud-based Google Workspace has been growing rapidly and expanding its market share. Looking at the entire office market, Google seems to be larger now. According to ElectroIQ's research, in 2024, Google has 44% and MS has 30%.

Of course, MS Office and Google Workspace are also widely used in Korea. In particular, many companies find it difficult to work without spreadsheet functions like Excel or Google Sheets. So, even though MS Word comes with MS Office, why do many people still need HWP? Especially when submitting documents to government ministries or public institutions. Why did it turn out this way?

Why Was HWP Necessary? The Challenge of Hangul Processing in the 90s

In the 90s, it was difficult to properly express Hangul with MS Word. This was due to the unique characteristics of Hangul. Unicode 2.0 was released in 1996, but it took several more years for the standard to be applied to actual software, so there were continuous problems until before the 2000s.

The most important part is usually considered to be the limitations of ‘Wanseonghyeong’ (완성형) Hangul, which was mainly used until the 90s. To briefly summarize Wanseonghyeong and Johabyeong (조합형):

• Wanseonghyeong: A method of expressing one character with a single code. For example, the letter 귬 is represented by a single code ( U+ADEC in Unicode).
• Johabyeong: A method of expressing Hangul by dividing it into initial, medial, and final consonants (Choseong, Jungseong, Jongseong). Thus, the letter 귬 is expressed by combining the codes representing ㄱ + ㅠ + ㅁ.

Anyone who uses Hangul can immediately see that Johabyeong fits the principles of Hangul well and is efficient. Instead, a dedicated program for Hangul is needed, and that dedicated program must be applied worldwide so that Hangul can be read and written anywhere.

At that time in the 90s, Wanseonghyeong could only represent 2,350 Hangul characters due to storage space limitations. So, letters like 귬 or 띡 could not be written (you can see more examples of characters or words that couldn't be written at that time on Namuwiki). In fact, rather than there being immediate great inconvenience in communicating with 2,350 characters, there was a steady perception that foreign technology was insufficient to express Korean and Hangul.

The History of HWP: A Matter of National Pride?

The company that develops and supplies HWP is 'Hancom (Han글과컴퓨터, hereinafter referred to as Hancom)'. In 1989, members of a computer research club at Seoul National University played a central role in releasing Hangul 1.0, and in October 1990, they established Hancom. From the company name itself, you can see their intention to emphasize their expertise in Hangul.

However, it seems that Lee Chan-jin, the company's founder, who is also well-known for his marriage to then-popular actress Kim Hee-ae, did not have a strong will to grow the company for a long time.

Microsoft's Attempted Acquisition of Hancom

In June 1998, Hancom shocked many people by announcing that it would sell HWP to MS due to deteriorating management. The sale price at that time was said to be $20 million. However, MS imposed a condition that HWP development must be stopped, which seems obvious now, but people thought it was unfair.

Ultimately, the Venture Business Association launched a "Save HWP" movement, claiming that Hancom's sale would result in a national wealth loss of over 1 trillion won. The plan was to raise 10 billion won, but it was reportedly difficult to achieve even one-tenth of the target. So, eventually, Lee Min-hwa, the founder of Medison, invested 5 billion won [Source].

About a year later, the New York Times reportedly reported the following:

Hancom, which Koreans consider a national technological asset, has seen its capital increase 50-fold. This is the first time in the world that anyone has fought against MS like this.

Patriotic Marketing and Continuous Changes in Majority Shareholders

In 1998, Hancom launched a marketing campaign appealing to patriotism by releasing a product blatantly named the ‘8·15 Special Edition’ (Liberation Day Special Edition), selling 700,000 copies. The special edition was priced at only 10,000 won, but it came with the condition that it could only be used for one year. The problem was that at that time, there was no concept of paying annually to subscribe to software. The one-year limit was not actively advertised, and there were no particular technical restrictions, so many people continued to use it [Source].

People who participated in the Hangul and Computer company rescue movement, which turned into a national movement last July, are now in a position where they could be accused of being illegal software users. … As voices of dissatisfaction grew louder, Hangul and Computer belatedly officially announced today that they would not impose a limit on the usage period.

Management continued to be difficult. Just as Samsung's self-developed ‘Hunminjeongeum’ had its own competitiveness but eventually gave up the business, it seems that developing a Korean word processor was not profitable. Hancom was acquired by Prime Group in 2003 and sold to TG Sambo in 2009, with its owner changing 8 times by 2010 alone [Source].

The Pros and Cons of Government Support

There is a strong perception that HWP, which was unstable in its management, was able to survive thanks to government support. Although the government did not designate HWP as a standard through KS certification, it is treated as a de facto standard. The situation has improved a lot now, and most local government press releases are also provided in PDF format. However, in areas less scrutinized by citizens, such as when submitting applications to win government-funded projects? It can be expected that in most cases, you will have to download a form in HWP format, fill it out, and upload it.

This government support clearly helped Hancom survive, but it is regrettable in terms of public information accessibility. This is especially true because HWP's file format is largely proprietary.

HWP's File Format: Gradually Becoming More Open

The HWP format was only made public in 2010. The public document is a bit difficult to read, and Hancom's Exploring the HWP Format Structure page is relatively easy to understand.

The HWP format is a binary format composed of CFB (Compound File Binary File Format, hereinafter CFB) developed by Microsoft. This format is a way to store multiple data streams within a single file and is similar to FAT (File Allocation Table). Simply put, you can understand it as a format that includes a folder structure within the file.

The Signature (Magic Number) indicating a CFB file is D0 CF 11 E0 A1 B1 1A E1.

The Header that actually indicates an HWP document appears later. To check this value, you must first parse the CFB structure. This Signature is followed by important information such as document version, compression status, and encryption status.

Other detailed information is explained, but it is not sufficient for reading and writing files.

The Emergence of HWPX

There were persistent criticisms about the closed nature of HWP, and in 2017, the government decided to adopt ODT (Open Document Text), an international standard open-source format. However, this means that official documents will be stored in ODT format, not that all work must be done in ODT (it was strange in the first place to store all public records only in a document format dependent on a private company) [Source].

In any case, perhaps because Hancom felt pressure from various directions, it changed to a new standard called HWPX as the default format starting in 2021. Since HWPX was developed with OWPML (Open Word-Processor Markup Language), it can be said that a way has been opened to fully understand the structure and content of documents.

However, the transition to HWPX does not seem to be happening quickly. Above all, it is thought that there is resistance because it is a format that older versions of the HWP program cannot open.

What Does the Future Hold?

HWP's future is still uncertain, but it is unlikely to disappear from the market abruptly. While the use of MS Office and Google Workspace is becoming common in large corporations, HWP is still essentially required for work with public institutions and in certain fields. There is also still a user base that prefers HWP's unique advantages, such as its complex table editing functions and keyboard shortcuts familiar to experienced users.

Despite changes like HWPX, compatibility between various word processors is still lacking. The inconvenience for people who occasionally use HWP is unlikely to disappear easily.