Microsoft Word is a
word processing software developed by
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name ''Multi-Tool Word'' for
Xenix
Xenix is a discontinued version of the Unix operating system for various microcomputer platforms, licensed by Microsoft from AT&T Corporation in the late 1970s. The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) later acquired exclusive rights to the software, and ...
systems.
Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including:
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
s running
DOS
DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems.
DOS may also refer to:
Computing
* Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel
* Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicatio ...
(1983),
Apple Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
running the
Classic Mac OS
Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The ...
(1985),
AT&T UNIX PC
The AT&T UNIX PC is a Unix desktop computer originally developed by Convergent Technologies (later acquired by Unisys), and marketed by AT&T Information Systems in the mid- to late-1980s. The system was codenamed "Safari 4" and is also known as th ...
(1985),
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...
(1988),
OS/2
OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...
(1989),
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
(1989),
SCO Unix
Xinuos OpenServer, previously SCO UNIX and SCO Open Desktop (SCO ODT), is a closed source computer operating system developed by Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), later acquired by SCO Group, and now owned by Xinuos. Early versions of OpenServer were ...
(1990) and
macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
(2001). Using
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...
, versions of Microsoft Word before 2013 can be run on
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
.
Commercial versions of Word are licensed as a standalone product or as a component of
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
suite of software, which can be purchased either with a perpetual license or as part of a
Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs formerly marketed under the name Mic ...
subscription
The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, and ...
.
History
Origins
In 1981, Microsoft hired
Charles Simonyi
Charles Simonyi (; hu, Simonyi Károly, ; born September 10, 1948) is a Hungarian-American software architect. He started and led Microsoft's applications group, where he built the first versions of Microsoft Office.
He co-founded and led In ...
, the primary developer of
Bravo
Bravo(s) or The Bravo(s) may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music Groups and labels
*Bravo (band), a Russian rock band
* Bravo (Spanish group), represented Spain at Eurovision 1984
*Bravo Music, an American concert band music publishing company ...
, the first
GUI
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
word processor
A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features.
Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices ded ...
, which was developed at
Xerox PARC
PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...
.
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
Xenix is a discontinued version of the Unix operating system for various microcomputer platforms, licensed by Microsoft from AT&T Corporation in the late 1970s. The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) later acquired exclusive rights to the software, and ...
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
''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication.
It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tech ...
'', making it the first to be distributed on-disk with a
magazine
A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...
.
That year Microsoft demonstrated Word running on
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
.
Unlike most
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
programs at the time, Microsoft Word was designed to be used with a mouse.
Advertisements depicted the
Microsoft Mouse
The Microsoft Mouse is a computer mouse released by Microsoft in 1983. It is the first mouse released by the company, and it was bundled with Microsoft Word, Notepad, and an on-screen teaching tutorial for an initial price of $195.
Nicknamed the ...
and described Word as a
WYSIWYG
In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...
, windowed word processor with the ability to
undo
Undo is an interaction technique which is implemented in many computer programs. It erases the last change done to the document, reverting it to an older state. In some more advanced programs, such as graphic processing, undo will negate the las ...
and display bold, italic, and underlined text,
although it could not render
font
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mod ...
s.
It was not initially popular, since its user interface was different from the leading word processor at the time,
WordStar
WordStar is a word processor application for microcomputers. It was published by MicroPro International and originally written for the CP/M-80 operating system, and later written also for MS-DOS and other 16-bit PC OSes. Rob Barnaby was the sol ...
. However, Microsoft steadily improved the product, releasing versions 2.0 through 5.0 over the next six years. In 1985, Microsoft
ported
In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...
Word to the
classic Mac OS
Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The ...
(known as Macintosh System Software at the time). This was made easier by Word for DOS having been designed for use with high-resolution displays and laser printers, even though none were yet available to the general public.
It was also notable for its very fast cut-and-paste function and unlimited number of undo operations, which are due to its usage of the
piece table In computing, a piece table is a data structure typically used to represent a text document while it is edited in a text editor. Initially a reference (or 'span') to the whole of the original file is created, which represents the as yet unchanged ...
data structure.
Following the precedents of LisaWrite and MacWrite, Word for Mac OS added true
WYSIWYG
In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...
features. It fulfilled a need for a word processor that was more capable than
MacWrite
MacWrite is a WYSIWYG word processor application released along with the first Apple Macintosh systems in 1984. Together with MacPaint, it was one of the two original "killer applications" that propelled the adoption and popularity of the GUI i ...
. After its release, Word for Mac OS's sales were higher than its MS-DOS counterpart for at least four years.
The second release of Word for Mac OS, 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
)
As an example, the following RTF code
would be rendered as follows:
This is some bold text.
Character encoding
A standard RTF file can only consist of 7-bit ASCII characters, but can use escape sequences to encode other characters. Th ...
(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 MacWrite Pro was discontinued in the mid-1990s, Word for Mac OS never had any serious rivals. Word 5.1 for Mac OS, released in 1992, was a very popular word processor owing to its elegance, relative ease of use, and feature set. Many users say it is the best version of Word for Mac OS ever created.
In 1986, an agreement between
Atari
Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc. (1972–1992), Atari, Inc., ...
and Microsoft brought Word to the
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...
under the name ''Microsoft Write''. The Atari ST version was a port of Word 1.05 for the Mac OS
and was never updated.
The first version of Word for Windows was released in 1989. With the release of
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.0 is the third major release of Microsoft Windows, launched in 1990. It features a new graphical user interface (GUI) where applications are represented as clickable icons, as opposed to the list of file names seen in its predecesso ...
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
The year 2000 problem, also known as the Y2K problem, Y2K scare, millennium bug, Y2K bug, Y2K glitch, Y2K error, or simply Y2K refers to potential computer errors related to the Time formatting and storage bugs, formatting and storage of cale ...
, it made Microsoft Word 5.5 for DOS available for free downloads. , it is still available for download from Microsoft's website.
In 1991, Microsoft embarked on a project code-named Pyramid to completely rewrite Microsoft Word from the ground up. Both the Windows and Mac OS 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 at the same time without a rewrite. Instead, the next versions of Word for Windows and Mac OS, 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, Mac OS, 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 (e.g., from ''InfoWorld''
), the Mac OS 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 offered Word 5 again, after it had been discontinued.
Subsequent versions of Word for macOS are no longer direct ports of Word for Windows, instead featuring a mixture of ported code and native code.
Word for Windows
Word for Windows is available stand-alone or as part of the Microsoft Office suite. Word contains rudimentary desktop publishing capabilities and is the most widely used word processing program on the market. Word files are commonly used as the format for sending text documents via e-mail because almost every user with a computer can read a Word document by using the Word application, a Word viewer or a word processor that imports the Word format (see
Microsoft Word Viewer
Microsoft Word Viewer is a discontinued freeware program for Microsoft Windows that can display and print Microsoft Word documents. Word Viewer allows text from a Word document to be copied into clipboard and pasted into a word processor. The las ...
).
Word 6 for
Windows NT
Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems sc ...
was the first 32-bit version of the product, released with Microsoft Office for Windows NT around the same time as
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...
. It was a straightforward port of Word 6.0. Starting with Word 95, each release of Word was named after the year of its release, instead of its version number.
Word 2007 introduced a redesigned user interface that emphasized the most common controls, dividing them into tabs, and adding specific options depending on the context, such as selecting an image or editing a table.
This user interface, called Ribbon, was included in Excel, PowerPoint and Access 2007, and would be later introduced to other Office applications with
Office 2010
Microsoft Office 2010 (codenamed Office 14) is a version of Microsoft Office for Microsoft Windows unveiled by Microsoft on May 15, 2009, and released to manufacturing on April 15, 2010, with general availability on June 15, 2010, as the success ...
and Windows applications such as Paint and WordPad with
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
, respectively.
The redesigned interface also includes a toolbar that appears when selecting text, with options for formatting included.
Word 2007 also included the option to save documents as
Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software and Web services developed by Adobe Inc. to view, create, manipulate, print and manage Portable Document Format (PDF) files.
The family comprises Acrobat Reader (formerly Reader), Acrobat (forme ...
or XPS files,
and upload Word documents like blog posts on services such as WordPress.
Word 2010 allows the customization of the Ribbon,
adds a Backstage view for file management,
has improved document navigation, allows creation and embedding of screenshots,
and integrates with online services such as Microsoft
OneDrive
Microsoft OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) is a file hosting service operated by Microsoft. First launched in August 2007, it enables registered users to share and synchronize their files. OneDrive also works as the storage backend of the web ver ...
.
Word 2019 added a dictation function.
Word 2021 added co-authoring, a visual refresh on the start experience and tabs, automatic cloud saving, dark mode, line focus, an updated draw tab, and support for ODF 1.3.
Word for Mac
The Mac was introduced on January 24, 1984, and Microsoft introduced Word 1.0 for Mac a year later, on January 18, 1985. The DOS, Mac, and Windows versions are quite different from each other. Only the Mac version was
WYSIWYG
In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...
and used a graphical user interface, far ahead of the other platforms. Each platform restarted its version numbering at "1.0". There was no version 2 on the Mac, but version 3 came out on January 31, 1987, as described above. Word 4.0 came out on November 6, 1990, and added automatic linking with Excel, the ability to flow text around graphics, and a WYSIWYG page view editing mode. Word 5.1 for Mac, released in 1992 ran on the original 68000 CPU and was the last to be specifically designed as a Macintosh application. The later Word 6 was a Windows port and poorly received. Word 5.1 continued to run well until the last Classic MacOS. Many people continue to run Word 5.1 to this day under an emulated Mac classic system for some of its excellent features, such as document generation and renumbering, or to access their old files.
In 1997, Microsoft formed the
Macintosh Business Unit
Apple Productivity Experience Group (known as APEX) is an operating unit of Microsoft that, as of 2009, is the largest software developer outside of Apple Inc. for the macOS and iOS operating systems. Formed as Macintosh Business Unit on January ...
as an independent group within Microsoft focused on writing software for
Mac OS
Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc.
In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded "M ...
. Its first version of Word, Word 98, was released with Office 98 Macintosh Edition. Document compatibility reached parity with Word 97,
and it included features from Word 97 for Windows, including spell and grammar checking with squiggles.
Users could choose the menus and keyboard shortcuts to be similar to either Word 97 for Windows or Word 5 for Mac OS.
Word 2001, released in 2000, added a few new features, including the
Office Clipboard, which allowed users to copy and paste multiple items.
It was the last version to run on
classic Mac OS
Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The ...
and, on
Mac OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...
, it could only run within the
Classic Environment
This is a list of macOS built-in apps and system components.
Applications
App Store
The Mac App Store is macOS's digital distribution platform for macOS apps, created and maintained by Apple Inc. based on the iOS version, the platform was an ...
. Word X, released in 2001, was the first version to run natively on, and required, Mac OS X,
and introduced non-contiguous text selection.
Word 2004 was released in May 2004. It included a new Notebook Layout view for taking notes either by typing or by voice.
Other features, such as tracking changes, were made more similar with Office for Windows.
Word 2008, released on January 15, 2008, included a Ribbon-like feature, called the Elements Gallery, that can be used to select page layouts and insert custom diagrams and images. It also included a new view focused on publishing layout, integrated bibliography management,
and native support for the new Office Open XML format. It was the first version to run natively on Intel-based Macs.
Word 2011, released in October 2010, replaced the Elements Gallery in favor of a Ribbon user interface that is much more similar to Office for Windows,
and includes a full-screen mode that allows users to focus on reading and writing documents, and support for
Office Web Apps
Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketi ...
.
Word 2021, added real-time co-authoring, automatic cloud saving, dark mode, immersive reader enhancements, line focus, a visual refresh, the ability to save pictures in SVG format, and a new Sketched style outline.
File formats
Filename extensions
Microsoft Word's native file formats are denoted either by a
.doc
or
.docx
filename extension
A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (e.g., .txt, .docx, .md). The extension indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically d ...
.
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 3 and 4 for Mac OS
# Word 6 and Word 95 for Windows; Word 6 for Mac OS
# Word 97 and later for Windows; Word 98 and later for Mac OS
(The
classic Mac OS
Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The ...
of the era did not use filename extensions.)
The newer
.docx
extension signifies the
Office Open XML international standard for Office documents and is used by default by Word 2007 and later for Windows as well as Word 2008 and later for macOS.
Binary formats (Word 97–2007)
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, the default Word document format (
.DOC) became a ''de facto'' standard of
document file format
A document file format is a text or binary file format for storing documents on a storage media, especially for use by computers.
There currently exist a multitude of incompatible document file formats.
Examples of XML-based open standards are D ...
s for Microsoft Office users. There are different versions of "Word Document Format" used by default in Word 97–2007. Each binary word file is a
Compound File, a hierarchical
file system
In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...
within a file. According to
Joel Spolsky
Avram Joel Spolsky (born 1965) is a software engineer and writer. He is the author of ''Joel on Software'', a blog on software development, and the creator of the project management software Trello. He was a Program Manager on the Microsoft Excel ...
, Word Binary File Format is extremely complex mainly because its developers had to accommodate an overwhelming number of features and prioritize performance over anything else.
As with all OLE Compound Files, Word Binary Format consists of "storages", which are analogous to
computer folders and "streams", which are similar to
computer file
A computer file is a computer resource for recording data in a computer storage device, primarily identified by its file name. Just as words can be written to paper, so can data be written to a computer file. Files can be shared with and transfe ...
s. Each storage may contain streams or other storage. Each Word Binary File must contain a stream called the "WordDocument" stream and this stream must start with a File Information Block (FIB). FIB serves as the first point of reference for locating everything else, such as where the text in a Word document starts, ends, what version of Word created the document and other attributes.
Word 2007 and later continue to support the DOC file format, although it is no longer the default.
XML Document (Word 2003)
The .docx XML format introduced in Word 2003 was a simple,
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
-based format called
WordProcessingML or WordML.
The Microsoft Office XML formats are
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
-based document formats (or
XML schema
An XML schema is a description of a type of Extensible Markup Language, XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed ...
s) introduced in versions of
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
prior to
Office 2007
Microsoft Office 2007 (codenamed Office 12) is an office suite for Windows, developed and published by Microsoft. It was officially revealed on March 9, 2006 and was the 12th version of Microsoft Office. It was released to manufacturing on Novemb ...
.
Microsoft Office XP
Microsoft Office XP (codenamed Office 10) is an office suite which was officially revealed in July 2000 by Microsoft for the Windows operating system. Office XP was released to manufacturing on March 5, 2001, and was later made available to ret ...
introduced a new XML format for storing Excel spreadsheets and Office 2003 added an XML-based format for Word documents.
These formats were succeeded by
Office Open XML
Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML) is a zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized the initial version a ...
(ECMA-376) in
Microsoft Office 2007
Microsoft Office 2007 (codenamed Office 12) is an office suite for Windows, developed and published by Microsoft. It was officially revealed on March 9, 2006 and was the 12th version of Microsoft Office. It was released to manufacturing on Novemb ...
.
Cross-version compatibility
Opening a Word Document file in a version of Word other than the one with which it was created can cause an incorrect display of the document. The document formats of the various versions change in subtle and not-so-subtle ways (such as changing the font or the handling of more complex tasks like footnotes). 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
)
As an example, the following RTF code
would be rendered as follows:
This is some bold text.
Character encoding
A standard RTF file can only consist of 7-bit ASCII characters, but can use escape sequences to encode other characters. Th ...
(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.
Third-party formats
Plugins permitting the Windows versions of Word to read and write formats it does not natively support, such as
international standard
international standard is a technical standard developed by one or more international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use worldwide. The most prominent such organization is the International Or ...
OpenDocument
The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed wi ...
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 criticism, and the
ODF Alliance
The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed wi ...
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.
[March 23, 2006, Gates: Office 2007 will enable a new class of applicatio]
Mass. holding tight to OpenDocument – ZDNet
As an answer, on October 20, 2005, an online petition was created to demand ODF support from Microsoft.
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 the 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
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
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.
Features and flaws
Among its features, Word includes a built-in spell checker, a thesaurus, a dictionary, and utilities for manipulating and editing text. The following are some aspects of its feature set.
Templates
Several later versions of Word include the ability for users to create their formatting templates, allowing them to define a file in which: the title, heading, paragraph, and other element designs differ from the standard Word templates. Users can find how to do this under the Help section located near the top right corner (Word 2013 on
Windows 8
Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...
).
For example, Normal.dotm is the master
template
Template may refer to:
Tools
* Die (manufacturing), used to cut or shape material
* Mold, in a molding process
* Stencil, a pattern or overlay used in graphic arts (drawing, painting, etc.) and sewing to replicate letters, shapes or designs
Co ...
from which all Word documents are created. It determines the
margin
Margin may refer to:
Physical or graphical edges
*Margin (typography), the white space that surrounds the content of a page
*Continental margin, the zone of the ocean floor that separates the thin oceanic crust from thick continental crust
*Leaf ...
defaults as well as the layout of the text and font defaults. Although Normal.dotm is already set with certain defaults, the user can change it to new defaults. This will change other documents which were created using the template. It was previously Normal.dot.
Image formats
Word can import and display images in common bitmap formats such as
JPG
JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image ...
and
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...
. It can also be used to create and display simple line art. Microsoft Word added support for the common
SVG vector image format in 2017 for
Office 365
Microsoft 365 is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs formerly marketed under the name Mic ...
ProPlus subscribers and this functionality was also included in the Office 2019 release.
WordArt
![WordArt](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/WordArt.png)
WordArt enables drawing text in a Microsoft Word document such as a title, watermark, or other text, with graphical effects such as skewing, shadowing, rotating, stretching in a variety of shapes and colors, and even including three-dimensional effects. Users can apply formatting effects such as shadow, bevel, glow, and reflection to their document text as easily as applying bold or underline. Users can also spell-check text that uses visual effects and add text effects to paragraph styles.
Macros
A Macro is a rule of pattern that specifies how a certain input sequence (often a sequence of characters) should be mapped to an output sequence according to a defined process. Frequently used or repetitive sequences of keystrokes and mouse movements can be automated. Like other
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
documents, Word files can include advanced
macros and even embedded programs. The language was originally
WordBasic
WordBASIC was a subset of Microsoft QuickBASIC customized for word-processing in Microsoft Word. It was replaced by Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) when Word 97 was released. Contrarily to VBA, WordBasic was not object-oriented
Object- ...
, but changed to
Visual Basic for Applications
Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6.0 built into most desktop Microsoft Office applications. Although based on pre-.NET Visual Basic, which is no longer supported ...
as of Word 97.
This extensive functionality can also be used to run and propagate
viruses
A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea.
Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1 ...
in documents. The tendency for people to exchange Word documents via email,
USB flash drive
A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than . Since firs ...
s, and
floppy disk
A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...
s made this an especially attractive vector in 1999. A prominent example was the
Melissa virus
The Melissa virus is a mass-mailing macro virus released on or around March 26, 1999. It targets Microsoft Word and Outlook-based systems and created considerable network traffic. The virus infects computers via email; the email is titled "Import ...
, but countless others have existed.
These macro viruses were the only known cross-platform threats between Windows and Macintosh computers and they were the only infection vectors to affect any
macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
system up until the advent of
video codec trojans in 2007. Microsoft released patches for Word X and Word 2004 that 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, it is set to HIGH by default, generally reducing the risk from macro-based viruses, which have become uncommon.
Layout issues
Before Word 2010 (Word 14) for Windows, the program was unable to correctly handle
ligatures defined in
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark o ...
fonts. Those ligature glyphs with
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
codepoints may be inserted manually, but are not recognized by Word for what they are, breaking spell checking, while custom ligatures present in the font are not accessible at all. Since Word 2010, the program now has advanced
typesetting
Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or ''glyphs'' in digital systems representing ''characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random Ho ...
features which can be enabled,
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark o ...
ligatures,
kerning
In typography, kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between Character (symbol), characters in a Typeface#Proportion, proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning adjusts the space between individual le ...
and
hyphenation (previous versions already had the latter two features). Other layout deficiencies of Word include the inability to set crop marks or thin spaces. Various third-party workaround utilities have been developed.
In Word 2004 for Mac OS X, support of
complex scripts
Complex text layout (CTL) or complex text rendering is the typesetting of writing systems in which the shape or positioning of a grapheme depends on its relation to other graphemes. The term is used in the field of software internationalizatio ...
was inferior even to Word 97 and Word 2004 did not support
Apple Advanced Typography
Apple Advanced Typography (AAT) is Apple Inc.'s computer technology for advanced font rendering, supporting internationalization and complex features for typographers, a successor to Apple's little-used QuickDraw GX font technology of the mid-19 ...
features like ligatures or glyph variants.
Issues with technical documents
Microsoft Word is only awkwardly suitable for some kinds of technical writing, specifically, that which requires
mathematical equations figure placement, table placement and cross-references to any of these items. The usual workaround for equations is to use a third-party equation typesetter. Figures and tables must be placed manually; there is an anchor mechanism but it is not designed for fully automatic figure placement and editing text after placing figures and tables often requires re-placing those items by moving the anchor point and even then the placement options are limited. This problem is deeply baked into Word's structure since 1985 as it does not know where page breaks will occur until the document is printed.
Bullets and numbering
Microsoft Word supports
bullet list
In typography, a bullet or bullet point, , is a typographical symbol or glyph used to introduce items in a list. For example:
*Point 1
*Point 2
*Point 3
The bullet symbol may take any of a variety of shapes, such as circular, square, diam ...
s and
numbered list
Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office filin ...
s. It also features a numbering system that helps add correct numbers to pages, chapters, headers, footnotes, and entries of tables of content; these numbers automatically change to correct ones as new items are added or existing items are deleted. Bullets and numbering can be applied directly to paragraphs and converted to lists. Word 97 through 2003, however, had problems adding correct numbers to numbered lists. In particular, a second irrelevant numbered list might have not started with number one but instead resumed numbering after the last numbered list. Although Word 97 supported a hidden marker that said the list numbering must restart afterward, the command to insert this marker (Restart Numbering command) was only added in Word 2003. However, if one were to
cut the first item of the listed and paste it as another item (e.g. fifth), then the restart marker would have moved with it and the list would have restarted in the middle instead of at the top.
Users can also create tables in ''Word''. Depending on the version, ''Word'' can perform simple calculations – along with support for formulas and equations as well.
Word continues to default to non-Unicode characters and non-hierarchical bulleting, despite user preference for Powerpoint-style symbol hierarchies (e.g., filled circle/emdash/filled square/endash/emptied circle) and universal compatibility.
AutoSummarize
Available in certain versions of Word (e.g., Word 2007), AutoSummarize highlights passages or phrases that it considers valuable and can be a quick way of generating a crude abstract or an executive summary. 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, AutoSummarize 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.
AutoSummarize was removed from Microsoft Word for Mac OS X 2011, although it was present in Word for Mac 2008. AutoSummarize was removed from the Office 2010 release version (14) as well.
Other platforms
Word for mobile
Word Mobile is a
word processor
A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features.
Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices ded ...
that allows creating and editing documents. It supports basic formatting, such as bolding, changing font size, and changing colors (from red, yellow, or green). It can add comments, but can't edit documents with tracked changes. It can't open password-protected documents; change the typeface, text alignment, or style (normal, heading 1); create bulleted lists; insert pictures; or undo.
Word Mobile is neither able to display nor insert
footnote
A note is a string of text placed at the bottom of a page in a book or document or at the end of a chapter, volume, or the whole text. The note can provide an author's comments on the main text or citations of a reference work in support of the ...
s,
endnote
A note is a string of text placed at the bottom of a page in a book or document or at the end of a chapter, volume, or the whole text. The note can provide an author's comments on the main text or citations of a reference work in support of th ...
s,
page header
In typography and word processing, a page header (or simply header) is text that is separated from the body text and appears at the top of a printed page. Word-processing programs usually allow for the configuration of page headers, which are typ ...
s,
page footer
In typography and word processing, the page footer (or simply footer) of a printed page is a section located under the main text, or body. It is typically used as the space for the page number. In the earliest printed books it also contained the ...
s,
page break
A page break is a marker in an electronic document that tells the document interpreter that the content which follows is part of a new page. A page break causes a form feed to be sent to the printer during spooling of the document to the printer. ...
s, certain
indentation
__FORCETOC__
In the written form of many languages, an indentation or indent is an empty space at the beginning of a line to signal the start of a new paragraph. Many computer languages have adopted this technique to designate "paragraphs" or ot ...
of lists, and certain
font
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mod ...
s while working on a document, but retains them if the original document has them.
In addition to the features of the 2013 version, the 2007 version on Windows Mobile also has the ability to save documents in the
Rich Text Format
)
As an example, the following RTF code
would be rendered as follows:
This is some bold text.
Character encoding
A standard RTF file can only consist of 7-bit ASCII characters, but can use escape sequences to encode other characters. Th ...
and open legacy PSW (Pocket Word).
[Unsupported Features in Word Mobile](_blank)
Microsoft. Retrieved September 21, 2007. Furthermore, it includes a
spell checker In software, a spell checker (or spelling checker or spell check) is a software feature that checks for misspellings in a text. Spell-checking features are often embedded in software or services, such as a word processor, email client, electronic di ...
,
word count
The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and ad ...
tool, and a "Find and Replace" command. In 2015, Word Mobile became available for Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile on
Windows Store
Microsoft Store (formerly known as Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It started as an app store for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform apps ...
.
Word for the web
Word for the web is a free lightweight version of Microsoft Word available as part of Office on the web, which also includes web versions of Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint.
Word for the web lacks some Ribbon tabs, such as Design and Mailings. Mailings allows users to print envelopes and labels and manage mail merge
printing
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ea ...
of Word documents.
Word for the web is not able to edit certain objects, such as: equations, shapes, text boxes or drawings, but a placeholder may be present in the document. Certain advanced features like table sorting or columns will not be displayed but are preserved as they were in the document. Other views available in the Word desktop app (Outline, Draft, Web Layout, and Full-Screen Reading) are not available, nor are side-by-side viewing, split windows, and the ruler.
Password protection
Three password types can be set in Microsoft Word,
* Password to open a document
* Password to modify a document
* Password restricting formatting and editing
The second and third password types were developed by Microsoft for convenient shared use of documents rather than for their protection. There is no
encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can decip ...
of documents that are protected by such passwords and the Microsoft Office protection system saves a
hash sum
A hash function is any function that can be used to map data of arbitrary size to fixed-size values. The values returned by a hash function are called ''hash values'', ''hash codes'', ''digests'', or simply ''hashes''. The values are usually u ...
of a password in a document's header where it can be easily accessed and removed by the specialized software. ''Password to open a document'' offers much tougher protection that had been steadily enhanced in the subsequent editions of Microsoft Office.
''Word 95'' and all the preceding editions had the weakest protection that utilized a conversion of a password to a 16-bit
key
Key or The Key may refer to:
Common meanings
* Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm
* Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock
* Key (map ...
.
Key length
In cryptography, key size, key length, or key space refer to the number of bits in a key used by a cryptographic algorithm (such as a cipher).
Key length defines the upper-bound on an algorithm's security (i.e. a logarithmic measure of the fastest ...
in ''Word 97'' and ''2000'' was strengthened up to 40 bit. However, modern cracking software allows removing such a password very quickly – a persistent cracking process takes one week at most. Use of
rainbow tables
A rainbow table is an efficient way to store data that has been computed in advance to facilitate cracking passwords. To protect stored passwords from compromise in case of a data breach, organizations avoid storing them directly, instead transfo ...
reduces password removal time to several seconds. Some
password recovery
In cryptanalysis and computer security, password cracking is the process of recovering passwords from data that has been stored in or transmitted by a computer system in scrambled form. A common approach (brute-force attack) is to repeatedly tr ...
software can not only remove a password but also find an actual password that was used by a user to encrypt the document using the
brute-force attack
In cryptography, a brute-force attack consists of an attacker submitting many passwords or passphrases with the hope of eventually guessing correctly. The attacker systematically checks all possible passwords and passphrases until the correct ...
approach. Statistically, the possibility of recovering the password depends on the
password strength
Password strength is a measure of the effectiveness of a password against guessing or brute-force attacks. In its usual form, it estimates how many trials an attacker who does not have direct access to the password would need, on average, to gues ...
.
Word's 2003/XP version default protection remained the same but an option that allowed advanced users to choose a
Cryptographic Service Provider was added. If a strong CSP is chosen, guaranteed document decryption becomes unavailable and, therefore, a password can't be removed from the document. Nonetheless, a password can be fairly quickly picked with a brute-force attack, because its speed is still high regardless of the CSP selected. Moreover, since the CSPs are not active by default, their use is limited to advanced users only.
Word 2007 offers significantly more secure document protection which utilizes the modern
Advanced Encryption Standard
The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), also known by its original name Rijndael (), is a specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2001.
AES is a variant ...
(AES) that converts a password to a 128-bit key using a
SHA-1
In cryptography, SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) is a cryptographically broken but still widely used hash function which takes an input and produces a 160-bit (20-byte) hash value known as a message digest – typically rendered as 40 hexadecima ...
hash function 50,000 times. It makes password removal impossible (as of today, no computer that can pick the key in a reasonable amount of time exists) and drastically slows the brute-force attack speed down to several hundreds of passwords per second.
Word's 2010 protection algorithm was not changed apart from the increasing number of SHA-1 conversions up to 100,000 times and consequently, the brute-force attack speed decreased two times more.
Reception
Initial releases of Word were met with criticism.
Byte
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
in 1984 criticized the documentation for Word 1.1 and 2.0 for DOS, calling it "a complete farce". It called the software "clever, put together well and performs some extraordinary feats", but concluded that "especially when operated with the mouse, has many more limitations than benefits ... extremely frustrating to learn and operate efficiently".
''
PC Magazine
''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...
'' review was very mixed, stating: "I've run into weird word processors before, but this is the first time one's nearly knocked me down for the count" but acknowledging that Word's innovations were the first that caused the reviewer to consider abandoning
WordStar
WordStar is a word processor application for microcomputers. It was published by MicroPro International and originally written for the CP/M-80 operating system, and later written also for MS-DOS and other 16-bit PC OSes. Rob Barnaby was the sol ...
. While the review cited an excellent
WYSIWYG
In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...
display, sophisticated print formatting, windows, and footnoting as merits, it criticized many small flaws, very slow performance, and "documentation produced by Madame Sadie's Pain Palace". It concluded that Word was "two releases away from potential greatness".
''Compute!'s Apple Applications'' in 1987 stated that "despite a certain awkwardness", Word 3.01 "will likely become the major Macintosh word processor" with "far too many features to list here". While criticizing the lack of true WYSIWYG, the magazine concluded that "''Word'' is marvelous. It's like a
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
or
Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These invention ...
, whose occasional gaucherie we excuse because of his great gifts".
''
Compute!
''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET c ...
'' in 1989 stated that Word 5.0's integration of text and graphics made it "a solid engine for basic desktop publishing". The magazine approved of improvements to text mode, described the $75 price for upgrading from an earlier version as "the deal of the decade" and concluded that "as a high-octane word processor, ''Word'' is worth a look".
During the first quarter of 1996, Microsoft Word accounted for 80% of the worldwide word processing market.
Release history
References
Further reading
* Tsang, Cheryl. ''Microsoft: First Generation''. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. .
* Liebowitz, Stan J. & Margolis, Stephen E. ''Winners, Losers & Microsoft: Competition and Antitrust in High Technology'' Oakland: Independent Institute. .
External links
* – official site
Find and replace text by using regular expressions (Advanced)- archived official support website
{{Authority control
Word
A word is a basic element of language that carries an semantics, objective or pragmatics, practical semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of w ...
Classic Mac OS word processors
DOS word processors
MacOS word processors
Windows word processors
Technical communication tools
Screenshot software
1983 software
Atari ST software