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Microsoft Word
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Microsoft Word is Microsoft's word processing software. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS (1983), the Apple Macintosh (1984), SCO UNIX, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows (1989). It is a component of the Microsoft Office system; however, it is also sold as a standalone product and included in Microsoft Works Suite. Beginning with the 2003 version, the branding was revised to emphasize Word's identity as a component within the Office suite; Microsoft began calling it Microsoft Office Word instead of merely Microsoft Word.
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Microsoft Word is Microsoft's word processing software. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS (1983), the Apple Macintosh (1984), SCO UNIX, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows (1989). It is a component of the Microsoft Office system; however, it is also sold as a standalone product and included in Microsoft Works Suite. Beginning with the 2003 version, the branding was revised to emphasize Word's identity as a component within the Office suite; Microsoft began calling it Microsoft Office Word instead of merely Microsoft Word. The latest releases are Word 2007 for Windows and Word 2008 for Mac OS X.
History
Word 1981 to 1989
Concepts and ideas of Word were brought from Bravo, the original GUI word processor developed at Xerox PARC. Bravo's creator Charles Simonyi left PARC to work for Microsoft in 1981. Simonyi hired Richard Brodie, who had worked with him on Bravo, away from PARC that summer. On February 1, 1983, development on what was originally named Multi-Tool Word began.
Brodie renamed it Microsoft Word, and Microsoft released the program October 25, 1983, for the IBM PC. 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. However, it was not well received, and sales lagged behind those of rival products such as WordPerfect.
Word featured a concept of "What You See Is What You Get", or WYSIWYG, and was the first application with such features as the ability to display bold and italics text on an IBM PC. Word made full use of the mouse, which was so unusual at the time that Microsoft offered a bundled Word-with-Mouse package. Although MS-DOS was a character-based system, Microsoft Word was the first word processor for the IBM PC that showed actual line breaks and typeface markups such as bold and italics directly on the screen while editing, although this was not a true WYSIWYG system because available displays did not have the resolution to show actual typefaces. Other DOS word processors, such as WordStar and WordPerfect, used simple text only display with markup codes on the screen or sometimes, at the most, alternative colors.
As with most DOS software, each program had its own, often complicated, set of commands and nomenclature for performing functions that had to be learned. For example, in Word for MS-DOS, a file would be saved with the sequence Escape-T-S: pressing Escape called up the menu box, T accessed the set of options for Transfer and S was for Save (the only similar interface belonged to Microsoft's own Multiplan spreadsheet). As most secretaries had learned how to use WordPerfect, companies were reluctant to switch to a rival product that offered few advantages. Desired features in Word such as indentation before typing (emulating the F4 feature in WordPerfect), the ability to block text to copy it before typing, instead of picking up mouse or blocking after typing, and a reliable way to have macros and other functions always replicate the same function time after time, were just some of Word's problems for production typing.
Word for Macintosh, despite the major differences in look and feel from the DOS version, was ported by Ken Shapiro with only minor changes from the DOS source code, which had been written with high-resolution displays and laser printers in mind although none were yet available to the general public. Following the precedents of LisaWrite and MacWrite, Word for Macintosh attempted to add closer WYSIWYG features into its package. After Word for Mac was released in 1985, it gained wide acceptance.
There was no Word 2.0 for Macintosh. Instead, the second release of Word for Macintosh, shipped in 1987, was named Word 3.0; 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 Word 3.01, which was much more stable. All registered users of 3.0 were mailed free copies of 3.01, making this one of Microsoft's most expensive mistakes up to that time.
Word 1990 to 1995
The first version of Word for Windows was released in 1989 at a price of 500 US dollars. With the release of Windows 3.0 the following year, sales began to pick up (Word for Windows 1.0 was designed for use with Windows 3.0, and its performance was poorer with the versions of Windows available when it was first released). The failure of WordPerfect to produce a Windows version proved a fatal mistake. It was version 2.0 of Word, however, that firmly established Microsoft Word as the market leader.
After MacWrite, Word for Macintosh never had any serious rivals, although programs such as Nisus Writer provided features such as non-contiguous selection which were not added until Word 2002 in Office XP. In addition, many users complained that major updates reliably came more than two years apart, too long for most business users at that time.
Word 5.1 for the Macintosh, released in 1992, was a very popular word processor due to its elegance, relative ease of use, and feature set. However, version 6.0 for the Macintosh, released in 1994, was widely derided, unlike the Windows version. It was the first version of Word based on a common codebase between the Windows and Mac versions; many accused it of being slow, clumsy and memory intensive. In response to user requests, Microsoft offered a free "downgrade" to Word 5.1 for dissatisfied Word 6.0 purchasers.
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 the three versions for DOS, Macintosh, and Windows (where the previous version was Word for Windows 2.0). There may have also been thought to matching the current version 6.0 of WordPerfect for DOS and Windows, Word's major competitor. However, this wound up being the last version of Word for DOS. As well, subsequent versions of Word were no longer referred to by version number, and were instead named after the year of their release (e.g. Word 95 for Windows, synchronizing its name with Windows 95, and Word 98 for Macintosh), once again breaking the synchronization.
When Microsoft became aware of the Year 2000 problem, it released the entire version of DOS port of Microsoft Word 5.5 instead of getting people to pay for the update. As of February 2009, it is still available for download from Microsoft's web site.
Word 6.0 was actually the second attempt to develop a common codebase version of Word. The first, code-named Pyramid, had been an attempt to completely rewrite the existing Word product. 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. Proponents of Pyramid claimed it would have been faster, smaller, and more stable than the product that was eventually released for Macintosh, which was compiled using a beta version of Visual C++ 2.0 that targets the Macintosh, so many optimizations have to be turned off (the version 4.2.1 of Office is compiled using the final version), and sometimes use the Windows API simulation library included. Pyramid would have been truly cross-platform, with machine-independent application code and a small mediation layer between the application and the operating system.
More recent versions of Word for Macintosh are no longer ported versions of Word for Windows although some code is often appropriated from the Windows version for the Macintosh version.
Later versions of Word have more capabilities than just word processing. The Drawing tool allows simple desktop publishing operations such as adding graphics to documents. Collaboration, document comparison, multilingual support, translation and many other capabilities have been added over the years.
Word 97
Word 97 had the same general operating performance as later versions such as Word 2000. This was the first copy of Word featuring the Office Assistant, "Clippy," which was an animated helper used in all Office programs. This was a take over from the earlier launched concept in Microsoft Bob.
Word 98
Word 98 for the Macintosh gained many features of Word 97, and was bundled with the Macintosh Office 98 package. Document compatibility reached parity with Office 97 and Word on the Mac became a viable business alternative to its Windows counterpart. Unfortunately, Word on the Mac in this and later releases also became vulnerable to future Macro viruses that could compromise Word (and Excel) documents, leading to the only situation where viruses could be cross-platform. A Windows version of this was only bundled with the Korean/Japanese Microsoft Office 97 Powered By Word 98 and could not be purchased separately.
Word 2000
For most users, one of the most obvious changes introduced with Word 2000 (and the rest of the Office 2000 suite) was a clipboard that could hold multiple objects at once. Another noticeable change was that the Office Assistant, whose frequent unsolicited appearance in Word 97 had annoyed many users, was changed to be less intrusive.
Word 2001/Word X
Word 2001 was bundled with the Macintosh Office for that platform, acquiring most, if not all, of the feature set of Word 2000. Released in October 2000. Word 2001 was also sold individually apart from the Office suite. The Macintosh version, Word X, released in 2001, was the first version to run natively on (and require) Mac OS X.
Word 2002/XP
Word 2002 was bundled with Office XP and was released in 2001. It had many of the same features as Word 2000 but had a major new feature called the 'Task Panes', which gave quicker information and control to a lot of features that were only available in modal dialog boxes before. One of the key advertising strategies for the software was the removal of the Office Assistant in favor of a new help system, although it was simply disabled by default.
Word 2003
For the 2003 version, the Office programs, including Word, were rebranded to emphasize the unity of the Office suite, so that Microsoft Word officially became Microsoft Office Word.
Word 2004
A new Macintosh version of Office was released in May 2004. Substantial cleanup of the various applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and feature parity with Office 2003 (for Microsoft Windows) created a very usable release. Microsoft released patches through the years to eliminate most known Macro vulnerabilities from this version. While Apple released Pages and the open source community created NeoOffice, Word remains the most widely used word processor on the Macintosh.
Word 2007
The release includes numerous changes, including a new XML-based file format, a redesigned interface, an integrated equation editor and bibliographic management. Additionally, an XML data bag was introduced, accessible via the object model and file format, called Custom XML - this can be used in conjunction with a new feature called Content Controls implement structured documents. It also has contextual tabs, which are functionality specific only to the object with focus, and many other features like Live Preview (which enables you to view the document without making any permanent changes), Mini Toolbar, Super-tooltips, Quick Access toolbar, SmartArt, etc.
Word 2007 uses a new file format called docx. Word 2000-2003 users on Windows systems can install a free add-on called the "Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack" to be able to open, edit, and save the new Word 2007 files. Alternatively, Word 2007 can save to the old doc format of Word 97-2003.
Word 2008
Word 2008 is the most recent version of Microsoft Word for the Mac, released on January 15, 2008. It includes some new features from Word 2007, such as a ribbon-like feature that can be used to select page layouts and insert custom diagrams and images. Word 2008 also features native support for the new Office Open XML format, although the old .doc format can be set as a default.
File formats
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 five 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 and 2003 for Windows; Word 98, 2001, X, and 2004 for Mac
- Word 2007 for Windows; Word 2008 for Mac
The newer ".docx" extension signifies the Office Open XML international standard for office documents and is used by Word 2007 for Windows, Word 2008 for the Macintosh, as well as by a growing number of applications from other vendors.
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. This means it is possible the document the recipient sees might not be exactly the same as the document the sender sees.
Binary formats (Word 97-2003)
As Word became the dominant word processor in the late 1990s and early 2000s, its default Word document format (.DOC) became a de facto standard of document file formats for Microsoft Office users. Though usually just referred to as "Word Document Format", this term refers primarily to the range of formats used by default in Word version 97–2003. Word document files using the Word 97-2003 Binary File Format implement OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) structured storage to manage the structure of its file format. OLE behaves rather like a conventional hard drive file system, and is made up of several key components. Each word document is composed of so-called "big blocks" which are almost always (but do not have to be) 512-byte chunks; hence a Word document's file size will always be a multiple of 512. "Storages" are analogues of the directory on a disk drive, and point to other storages or "streams" which are similar to files on a disk. The text in a Word document is always contained in the "WordDocument" stream. The first big block in a Word document, known as the "header" block, provides important information as to the location of the major data structures in the document. "Property storages" provide metadata about the storages and streams in a .doc file, such as where it begins and its name and so forth. The "File information block" contains information about where the text in a word document starts, ends, what version of Word created the document, and other attributes.
Microsoft Office Open XML (Word 2007 and above)
Word 2007 uses Office Open XML (DOCX) as its default format, but retains the older binary format for compatibility reasons. Office Open XML used in Word 2007 is not identical to approved ISO/IEC 29500:2008 Office Open XML because of changes in format specification during standardization process.
Microsoft has declared that Office Open XML is already partially supported in Office 2007, but the company plans to update that support to full ISO standard in the next major version release of the Microsoft Office system, code-named "Office 14".
Microsoft has published specifications for the Word 97-2007 Binary File Format and the Office Open XML format. Microsoft has moved towards an XML-based file format for their office applications with Office 2007: Office Open XML. This format does not conform fully to standard XML. It is, however, publicly documented as Ecma International standard 376. Public documentation of the default file format is a first for Word, and makes it considerably easier, though not trivial, for competitors to interoperate.
During standardization process of Office Open XML was specification of this format changed after submitting some of proposed changes from ISO members. It's been approved as an international standard by ISO (ISO/IEC 29500:2008), but the approval is under review following objections by ISO members South Africa, Brazil, India and Venezuela. Another XML-based, public file format supported by Word 2003 and upwards is the Microsoft Office Word 2003 XML Format.
Attempts at cross-version compatibility
Opening a Word Document file in a version of Word other than the one with which it was created can cause incorrect display of the document. The document formats of the various versions change in subtle and not so subtle ways; formatting created in newer versions does not always survive when viewed in older versions of the program, nearly always because that capability does not exist in the previous version. Rich Text Format (RTF), an early effort to create a format for interchanging formatted text between applications, is an optional format for Word that retains most formatting and all content of the original document. Later, after HTML appeared, Word supported an HTML derivative as an additional full-fidelity roundtrip format similar to RTF, with the additional capability that the file could be viewed in a web browser.
Third party formats
It is possible to write plugins permitting Word to read and write formats it does not natively support, such as international standard OpenDocument format (ODF), ISO/IEC 26300:2006. Word does not natively support reading or writing ODF documents without such a plugin - or .
The ODF format 1.1 will be natively supported with the release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) scheduled for the first half of 2009, as Microsoft announced on May 21, 2008.
In October 2005, one year before the Microsoft Office 2007 suite was released, Microsoft declared, that there is not sufficient demand from Microsoft customers for international standard OpenDocument format support and therefore it will not be included in Microsoft Office 2007. This statement was repeated also in next months. As an answer, on October 20, 2005 an online petition was created to demand ODF support from Microsoft. The petition was signed by cca 12000 people.
In May 2006, ODF plugin for Microsoft Office was released by OpenDocument Foundation. Microsoft declared, that the company did not work with the developers of the plug-in.
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 is not to implement ODF direct to Microsoft Office, but only to create plugin and external tools. In February 2007, this project released first version of ODF plug-in for Microsoft Word.
In February 2007 SUN released initial version of SUN ODF plugin for Microsoft Office. Version 1.0 was released in July 2007.
Word 2007 (Service pack 1) supports (for output only) PDF and XPS format, but only after manual installation of Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS Add-in.
With OpenXML/ODF Translator Add-in for Office developed with support from Microsoft it also supports import and export of ODF.
Features and flaws
Word has a built-in spell checker, thesaurus, dictionary and Office Assistant.
Normal.dot
Normal.dot is the master template from which all Word documents are created. It is one of the most important files in Microsoft Word. It determines the margin defaults as well as the layout of the text and font defaults. Although normal.dot is already set with certain defaults, the user can change normal.dot to new defaults. This will change other documents that were created using the template and saved with the option to automatically update the formatting styles.
Macros
Like other Microsoft Office documents, Word files can include advanced macros and even embedded programs. The language was originally WordBasic, but changed to Visual Basic for Applications as of Word 97.
This extensive functionality can also be used to run and propagate viruses in documents. The tendency for people to exchange Word documents via email, USB key, and floppy makes this an especially attractive vector. A prominent example is the Melissa worm, but countless others have existed in the wild. Some anti-virus software can detect and clean common macro viruses, and firewalls may prevent worms from transmitting themselves to other systems.
These Macro viruses are the only known cross-platform threats between Windows and Macintosh computers and they were the only infection vectors to affect any Mac OS X system up until the advent of video codec trojans in 2007. Microsoft's released patches for Word X and Word 2004 effectively eliminated the Macro problem on the Mac by 2006.
Word's macro security setting, which regulates when macros may execute, can be adjusted by the user, but in the most recent versions of Word, is set to HIGH by default, generally reducing the risk from macro-based viruses, which have become uncommon.
Layout issues
As of Word 2007 for Windows (and Word 2004 for Macintosh), the program has been unable to handle ligatures defined in TrueType fonts: those ligature glyphs with Unicode codepoints may be inserted manually, but are not recognized by Word for what they are, breaking spellchecking, while custom ligatures present in the font are not accessible at all. Other layout deficiencies of Word include the inability to set crop marks or thin spaces. Various third-party workaround utilities have been developed. Similarly, combining diacritics are handled poorly: Word 2003 has "improved support", but many diacritics are still misplaced, even if a precomposed glyph is present in the font. Additionally, as of Word 2002, Word does automatic font substitution when it finds a character in a document that does not exist in the font specified. It is impossible to deactivate this, making it very difficult to spot when a glyph used is missing from the font in use.
In Word 2004 for Macintosh, complex scripts support was inferior even to Word 97, and Word does not support Apple Advanced Typography features like ligatures or glyph variants.
Bullets and numbering
Users report that Word's bulleting and numbering system is highly problematic. Particularly troublesome is Word's system for restarting numbering. However, the Bullets and Numbering system has been significantly overhauled for Office 2007, which is intended to reduce the severity of these problems. For example, Office 2007 cannot align tabs for multi-leveled numbered lists, although this is a basic functionality in OpenOffice.org. Often, items in a list will be inexplicably separated from their list number by one to three tabs, rendering outlines unreadable. These problems cannot be resolved even by expert users. Even basic dragging and dropping words is usually impossible. Bullet and numbering problems in Word include: bullet characters are often changed and altered, indentation is changed within the same list, and bullet point or number sequence can belong to an entirely different nests within the same sequence.
Creating tables
Users can also create tables in MS Word. Depending on the version, Word can perform simple calculations. Formulae are supported as well.
AutoSummarize
AutoSummarize highlights passages or phrases that it considers valuable. The amount of text to be retained can be specified by the user as a percentage of the current amount of text.
According to Ron Fein of the Word 97 team, Auto Summarize cuts wordy copy to the bone by counting words and ranking sentences. First, AutoSummarize identifies the most common words in the document (barring "a" and "the" and the like) and assigns a "score" to each word--the more frequently a word is used, the higher the score. Then, it "averages" each sentence by adding the scores of its words and dividing the sum by the number of words in the sentence--the higher the average, the higher the rank of the sentence. "It's like the ratio of wheat to chaff," explains Fein.
AutoCorrect
In Microsoft Office 2003, AutoCorrect items added by the user cease working when text from sources outside the document are pasted in.
Sub and superscript issues
In any of the Microsoft word package, it is impossible to display superscript exactly lying above subscript. It can only be done using equation editor.
Versions
Versions for MS-DOS include the following:
- 1983 November Word 1
- 1985 Word 2
- 1986 Word 3
- 1987 Word 4 aka Microsoft Word 4.0 for the PC
- 1989 Word 5
- 1991 Word 5.1
- 1991 Word 5.5
- 1993 Word 6.0
Versions for the Macintosh (Mac OS and Mac OS X) include the following:
- 1985 January Word 1 for the Macintosh
- 1987 Word 3
- 1989 Word 4
- 1991 Word 5
- 1993 Word 6
- 1998 Word 98
- 2000 Word 2001, the last version compatible with Mac OS 9
- 2001 Word v.X, the first version for Mac OS X only
- 2004 Word 2004, part of Office 2004 for Mac
- 2008 Word 2008, part of Office 2008 for Mac
Versions for Microsoft Windows include the following:
- 1989 November Word for Windows 1.0 for Windows 2.x, code-named Opus
- 1990 March Word for Windows 1.1 for Windows 3.0, code-named Bill the Cat
- 1990 June Word for Windows 1.1a for Windows 3.1
- 1991 Word for Windows 2.0, code-named Spaceman Spiff
- 1993 Word for Windows 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 (version 7.0) - included in Office 95
- 1997 Word 97 (version 8.0) included in Office 97
- 1998 Word 98 (version 8.5) only included in Office 97 Powered By Word 98only released in Japan and Korea
- 1999 Word 2000 (version 9.0) included in Office 2000
- 2001 Word 2002 (version 10) included in Office XP
- 2003 Word 2003 (officially "Microsoft Office Word 2003") - (ver. 11) included in Office 2003
- 2006 Word 2007 (officially "Microsoft Office Word 2007") - (ver. 12) included in Office 2007; released to businesses on November 30, 2006, released worldwide to consumers on January 30, 2007
Versions for SCO UNIX include the following:
Versions for OS/2 include the following:
- 1992 Microsoft Word for OS/2 version 1.1B
See also
Further reading
- Tsang, Cheryl. Microsoft: First Generation. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 0-471-33206-2.
- Liebowitz, Stan J. & Margolis, Stephen E. WINNERS, LOSERS & MICROSOFT: Competition and Antitrust in High Technology Oakland: Independent Institute. ISBN 0-945999-80-1.
External links
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