The editor area is where all editors appear.
When you open a file, the workbench attempts to find the appropriate editor and display it in the editor area. If there is no associated editor for a resource, the workbench will attempt to launch an external editor outside of the workbench. On Windows, the workbench will first attempt to launch the editor in place as an OLE document. This type of editor is referred to as an embedded editor.
When an editor is opened on a resource, the name of the resource appears on the tab of the editor. If the tab is the same color as the window title bar, the editor is active. An asterisk (*) indicates that an editor has unsaved changes.
You can stack editors in the editor area and display various open editors by clicking the tab for the editor that you want to bring to the front. You can also tile editors side-by-side in the editor area so that they can be viewed simultaneously.
Here is an example of a text editor in the workbench: