Electronic visual display in the context of "Flat-panel display"

A display device is an output device for presentation of information in visual or tactile form (the latter used for example in tactile electronic displays for blind people). When the input information that is supplied has an electrical signal the display is called an electronic display.

Common applications for electronic visual displays are television sets or computer monitors.

A computer monitor is an output device that displays information in pictorial or textual form. A discrete monitor comprises a visual display, support electronics, power supply, housing, electrical connectors, and external user controls.

The display in modern monitors is typically an LCD with LED backlight, having by the 2010s replaced CCFL backlit LCDs. Before the mid-2000s, most monitors used a cathode-ray tube (CRT) as the image output technology. A monitor is typically connected to its host computer via DisplayPort, HDMI, USB-C, DVI, or VGA. Monitors sometimes use other proprietary connectors and signals to connect to a computer, which is less common.

A touchscreen (or touch screen) is a type of display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device (a touch panel) and an output device (a visual display). The touch panel is typically layered on the top of the electronic visual display of a device. Touchscreens are commonly found in smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other electronic devices. The display is often an LCD, AMOLED or OLED display.

A user can give input or control the information processing system through simple or multi-touch gestures by touching the screen with a special stylus or one or more fingers. Some touchscreens use ordinary or specially coated gloves to work, while others may only work using a special stylus or pen. The user can use the touchscreen to react to what is displayed and, if the software allows, to control how it is displayed; for example, zooming to increase the text size.

An electronic document is a document that can be sent through non-physical means, such as telex, email, and the internet. Originally, any computer data were considered as something internal—the final data output was always on paper. However, the development of computer networks has made it so that in most cases it is much more convenient to distribute electronic documents than printed ones. The improvements in electronic visual display technologies made it possible to view documents on a screen instead of printing them (thus saving paper and the space required to store the printed copies). However, using electronic documents for the final presentation instead of paper has created the problem of multiple incompatible file formats. Even plain text computer files are not free from this problem—e.g. under MS-DOS, most programs could not work correctly with UNIX-style text files (see newline), and for non-English speakers, the different code pages always have been a source of trouble.

Even more problems are connected with complex file formats of various word processors, spreadsheets, and graphics software. To alleviate the problem, many software companies distribute free file viewers for their proprietary file formats (one example is Adobe's Acrobat Reader). The other solution is the development of standardized non-proprietary file formats (such as HTML and OpenDocument), and electronic documents for specialized uses have specialized formats—the specialized electronic articles in physics use TeX or PostScript.

In computing, text-based user interfaces (TUI) (alternately terminal user interfaces, to reflect a dependence upon the properties of computer terminals and not just text), is a retronym describing a type of user interface (UI) common as an early form of human–computer interaction, before the advent of bitmapped displays and modern conventional graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Like modern GUIs, they can use the entire screen area and may accept mouse and other inputs. They may also use color and often structure the display using box-drawing characters such as ┌ and ╣. The modern context of use is usually a terminal emulator.