- Microsoft Office Word is a word processor designed by microsoft.
- It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word forxenix systems Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PC's running DOS (1983), the Apple Machintosh (1984), the AT&T Unix PC (1985), Atari ST (1986),SCO UNIX, OS/2, andMicrosoft Words (1989).
- It is a component of the Microsoft Office software system; it is also sold as a standalone product and included in Microsoft Work Suite. The current versions are Microsoft Office Word 2010 for Windows and Microsoft Office Word 2011 for Mac.
History
- In 1981, Microsoft hired Charles Simonyi, the primary developer of Bravo, the first GUI word processor, which was developed at Xerox PARC Simonyi started work on a word processor called Multi-Tool Word and soon hired Richard Brodie, a former Xerox intern, who became the primary software engineer.
- Microsoft announced Multi-Tool Word for Xenix and MS-DOS in 1983. Its name was soon simplified to Microsoft Word. Free demonstration copies of the application were bundled with the November 1983 issue of PC world, making it the first program to be distributed on-disk with a magazine.
- Unlike most MS-DOS programs at the time, Microsoft Word was designed to be used with a mouse, and it was able to display some formatting, such as bold, italic, and underlined text, although it could not render fonts.It was not initially popular, since its user interface was different from the leading word processor at the time, WordStar. However, Microsoft steadily improved the product, releasing versions 2.0 through 5.0 over the next six years.
- In 1985, Microsoft poted Word to the Macintosh This was made easier by the fact that Word for DOS has been designed for use with high-resolution displays and laser printers, even though none were yet available to the general public.
- Following the precedents of LisaWrite and MacWrite, Word for Mac added true WYSIWG features.
- After its release, Word for Mac's sales were higher than its MS-DOS counterpart for at least four years.
- The second release of Word for Macintosh, shipped in 1987, was named Word 3.0 to synchronize its version number with Word for DOS; this was Microsoft's first attempt to synchronize version numbers across platforms.
- Word 3.0 included numerous internal enhancements and new features, including the first implementation of the Rich Text Format (RTF) specification, but was plagued with bugs. Within a few months Word 3.0 was superseded by a more stable Word 3.01, which was mailed free to all registered users of 3.0. After Mac Write, Word for Mac never had any serious rivals on the Mac.
- Word 5.1 for the Macintosh, released in 1992, was a very popular word processor owing to its elegance, relative ease of use and feature set. Many users say its the best version of Word for Mac ever created.
- In 1986, an agreement between Atari and Microsoft brought Word to the Atari ST under the name Microsoft Write. The Atari ST version was a port of Word 1.05 for the Apple Macintosh and was never updated.
- The first version of Word for Windows was released in 1989. With the release of Windows 3.0 the following year, sales began to pick up and Microsoft soon became the market leader for word processors for IBM PC-compatible computers.
- In 1991, Microsoft capitalized on Word for Windows' increasing popularity by releasing a version of Word for DOS, version 5.5, that replaced its unique user interface with an interface similar to a Windows application.
- When Microsoft became aware of the Year 2000 problem, it made Microsoft Word 5.5 for DOS available for download free. As of February 2012, it is still available for download from Microsoft's web site.
- In 1991, Microsoft embarked on a project code-named Pyramid to completely rewrite Microsoft Word from the ground up.
- Both the Windows and Mac versions would start from the same code base. It was abandoned when it was determined that it would take the development team too long to rewrite and then catch up with all the new capabilities that could have been added in the same time without a rewrite.
- Instead, the next versions of Word for Windows and Mac, dubbed version 6.0, both started from the code base of Word for Windows 2.0.
- With the release of Word 6.0 in 1993, Microsoft again attempted to synchronize the version numbers and coordinate product naming across platforms, this time across DOS, Macintosh, and Windows (this was the last version of Word for DOS).
- It introduced AutoCorrect, which automatically fixed certain typing errors, and AutoFormat, which could reformat many parts of a document at once. While the Windows version received favorable reviews, the Macintosh version was widely derided.
- Many accused it of being slow, clumsy and memory intensive, and its user interface differed significantly from Word 5.1. In response to user requests, Microsoft was forced to offer Word 5 again, after it had been discontinued.Subsequent versions of Word for Macintosh are no longer ported versions of Word for Windows.
File Format
File Extension:
Microsoft Word's native file formats are denoted either by a .doc or .docx file extension.
Although the ".doc" extension has been used in many different versions of Word, it actually encompasses four distinct file formats:
- Word for DOS
- Word for Windows 1 and 2; Word 4 and 5 for Mac
- Word 6 and Word 95 for Windows; Word 6 for Mac
- Word 97, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007 and 2010 for Windows; Word 98, 2001, X, and 2004 for Mac
- The newer ".docx" extension signifies the Office Open XML international standard for Office documents and is used by Word 2007 and 2010 for Windows, Word 2008 and 2011 for the Macintosh, as well as by a growing number of applications from other vendors, including OpenOffice.org writer, an open source word processing program.
- Microsoft does not guarantee the correct display of the document on different workstations, even if the two workstations use the same version of Microsoft Word, primarily due to page layout depending on the current printer. This means it is possible the document the recipient sees might not be exactly the same as the document the sender sees.
Third Party Format
- Plugins permitting the Windows versions of Word to read and write formats it does not natively support, such as international standard OpenDocument format (ODF) (ISO/IEC 26300:2006), are available.
- Up until the release of Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Office 2007, Word did not natively support reading or writing ODF documents without a plugin, namely the SUN ODF Plugin or the OpenXML/ODF Translator.
- With SP2 installed, ODF format 1.1 documents can be read and saved like any other supported format in addition to those already available in Word 2007. The implementation faces substantial criticsm, and the ODF Alliance and others have claimed that the third party plugins provide better support.Microsoft later declared that the ODF support has some limitations.
- In October 2005, one year before the Microsoft Office 2007 suite was released, Microsoft declared that there was insufficient demand from Microsoft customers for the international standard OpenDocument format support, and that therefore it would not be included in Microsoft Office 2007. This statement was repeated in the following months.
- As an answer, on October 20, 2005 an online petition was created to demand ODF support from Microsoft. The petition was signed by approximately 12000 people.
- In May 2006, the ODF plugin for Microsoft Office was released by the OpenDocument Foundation.
- Microsoft declared that it had no relationship with the developers of the plugin.
- In July 2006, Microsoft announced the creation of the Open XML Translator project – tools to build a technical bridge between the Microsoft Office Open XML Formats and the OpenDocument Format (ODF).
- This work was started in response to government requests for interoperability with ODF. The goal of project was not to add ODF support to Microsoft Office, but only to create a plugin and an external toolset. In February 2007, this project released a first version of the ODF plugin for Microsoft Word.
- In February 2007, Sun released an initial version of its ODF plugin for Microsoft Office. Version 1.0 was released in July 2007.
- Microsoft Word 2007 (Service Pack 1) supports (for output only) PDF and XPS formats, but only after manual installation of the Microsoft 'Save as PDF or XPS' add-on. On later releases, this was offered by default.
Versions
Versions for Microsoft Windows include the following:
| Year Released | Name | Version | Comments | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | Word for Windows 1.0 | |||||||||||
| 1990 | Word for Windows 1.1 | 1.1 | Code-named Bill The Cat | |||||||||
| 1990 | Word for Windows 1.1a | 1.1a | For Windows 3.1 | |||||||||
| 1991 | Word for Windows 2.0 | 2.0 | Code-named Spaceman Spiff | |||||||||
| 1993 | Word for Windows 6.0 | 6.0 | Code-named T3 (renumbered 6 to bring Windows version numbering in line with that of DOS version, Macintosh version and also WordPerfect, the main competing word processor at the time; also a 32-bit version for Windows NT only) | |||||||||
| 1995 | Word 95 | 7.0 | Included in Office 95 | |||||||||
| 1997 | Word 97 | 8.0 | Included in Office 97 | |||||||||
| 1998 | Word 98 | 8.5 | Only sold as part of Office 97 Powered By Word 98, which was only available in Japan and Korea. | |||||||||
| 1999 | Word 2000 | 9.0 | Included in Office 2000 | |||||||||
| 2001 | Word 2002 | 10.0 | Included in Office XP | |||||||||
| 2003 | Office Word 2003 | 11.0 | Included in Office 2003 | |||||||||
| 2006 | Office Word 2007 | 12.0 | Included in Offivce 2007; released to businesses on November 30, 2006, released worldwide to consumers on January 30, 2007 | |||||||||
| 2010 | Word 2010 | 14.0 | Included in Office 2010 |
Versions for the Macintosh (Mac OS and Mac OS X) include the following:
| Year Released | Name | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 1985 | Word 1 | |
| 1987 | Word 3 | |
| 1989 | Word 4 | Part of Office 1.0 and 1.5 |
| 1991 | Word 5jkj | |
| 1992 | Word 5.1 | |
| 1993 | Word 6 | |
| 1998 | Word 98 |
|
| 2000 | Word 2001 |
|
| 2001 | Word v. X | |
| 2004 | Word 2004 | Part of Office 2004 |
| 2008 | Word 2008 | Part of Office 2008 |
| 2010 | Word 2011 | Part of Office 2011 |
Versions for MS-DOS
| Year Released | Name | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Word 1 | |
| 1985 | Word 2 | |
| 1986 | Word 3 | |
| 1987 | Word 4 | |
| 1989 | Word 5 | |
| 1991 | Word 5.1 | |
| 1991 | Word 5.5 | First DOS version to use a Windows-like user interface |
| 1993 | Word 6.0 |
Versions for the Atari ST:
| Year Released | Name | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Microsoft Write | Conversion of Microsoft Word 1.05 for Mac |
Versions for OS/2 include the following:
| Year Released | Name | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Microsoft Word for OS/2 version 1.1B |
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