Within a few months, Word 3.0 was superseded by a more stable Word 3.01, which was mailed free to all registered users of 3.0. It fulfilled a need for a word processor that was more capable than MacWrite. However, Microsoft steadily improved the product, releasing versions 2.0 through 5.0 over the next six years.
It introduced AutoCorrect, which automatically fixed certain typing errors, and AutoFormat, which could reformat many parts of a document at once. 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). 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. 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. Both the Windows and Mac OS versions would start from the same code base. 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.
Features and functionalities of Microsoft Word for Windows
According to Ron Fein of the Word 97 team, AutoSummarize cuts wordy copy to the bone by counting words and ranking sentences. The amount of text to be retained can be specified by the user as a percentage of the current amount of text. 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. 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. Bullets and numbering can be applied directly to paragraphs and converted to lists. 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.
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Those ligature glyphs with Unicode 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. 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 system up until the advent of video codec trojans in 2007. Word can import and display images in common bitmap formats such as JPG and GIF. Although Normal.dotm is already set with certain defaults, the user can change it to new defaults.
- While the review cited an excellent WYSIWYG 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”.
- 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 1981, Microsoft hired Charles Simonyi, the primary developer of Bravo, the first GUI word processor, which was developed at Xerox PARC.
- With Word’s cloud capabilities, you can also rest easy knowing that your files are safely stored and easily accessible anywhere.
- Write is best described as Word locked in “Short Menus” mode, and as such it used the same file format so that users could exchange files with absolutely no conversion necessary.
- The modern Word Mobile supports basic formatting, such as bolding, changing font size, and changing colors (from red, yellow, or green).
Document compatibility reached parity with Word 97, and it included features from Word 97 for Windows, including spell and grammar checking with squiggles. There was no version 2 on the Mac, but version 3 came out on January 31, 1987, as described above. Microsoft Word 2024 (Fourth perpetual release of Office 16) for the Microsoft Windows and MacOS was released on October 1, 2024. 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 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. Starting with Word 95, each release of Word was named after the year of its release, instead of its version number. Word contains rudimentary desktop publishing capabilities and is the most widely used word processing program on the market.
Microsoft Word is included with Microsoft 365, which gives you access to other valuable tools like Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. For remote work, Microsoft Teams is a great way to share your Word documents with a group of people. Whether you’re using a template or starting from scratch, Word has plenty of fonts, styles, and tools to help you make your document look exactly how you want it. You can see precisely what your teammates add or edit in the document as it happens.
The second and third password types were developed by Microsoft for convenient shared use of documents rather than for their protection. Like other Microsoft Office documents, Word files can include advanced macros and even embedded programs. 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 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). The Microsoft Office XML formats are XML-based document formats (or XML schemas) introduced in versions of Microsoft Office prior to Office 2007. It was not initially popular, since its user interface was different from the leading word processor at the time, WordStar.
Simple and secure in one place
Mailings allows users to print envelopes and labels and manage mail merge printing of Word documents. 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 and open legacy PSW (Pocket Word). It can’t open password-protected documents; change the typeface, text alignment, or style (normal, heading 1); insert responsive checkboxes; insert pictures; or undo. Write is a version of Microsoft Word with limited features that Microsoft hoped would replace aging MacWrite in the Macintosh word processor market.
Release history
- Word contains rudimentary desktop publishing capabilities and is the most widely used word processing program on the market.
- In February 2007, Sun released an initial version of its ODF plugin for Microsoft Office.
- Spark creativity and collaboration in any learning environment with a variety of Microsoft 365 apps and free templates to choose from.
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The automatic backup and internal storage of the OneDrive are useful in preventing the loss of data by personal users. Meeting and Outlook integrations allow you to import meetings, notes, and tasks directly into your documents or spreadsheets, and they are connected to the same workflow. People and teams can work together in real-time and make instant changes and comments on the same document.
Rest in peace, WordPad
The Microsoft 365 Copilot app brings together your favorite apps and Copilot in one intuitive daman game login platform. Microsoft 365 seamlessly tracks updates, tasks, and comments across all your files so you can pick up right where you left off. The Microsoft 365 Copilot app empowers your employees to do their best work with Copilot in the apps they use daily.
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. Following the precedents of LisaWrite and MacWrite, Word for Mac OS added true WYSIWYG features. In 1985, Microsoft ported Word to the classic Mac OS (known as Macintosh System Software at the time). Unlike most MS-DOS programs at the time, Microsoft Word was designed to be used with a mouse. Free demonstration copies of the application were bundled with the November 1983 issue of PC World, making it the first to be distributed on-disk with a magazine. Microsoft Word has been the de facto standard word processing software since the 1990s when it eclipsed WordPerfect.
Password to open a document offers much tougher protection that had been steadily enhanced in the subsequent editions of Microsoft Office. 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. 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. In Word 2004 for Mac OS X, support of complex scripts was inferior even to Word 97 and Word 2004 did not support Apple Advanced Typography features like ligatures or glyph variants. Microsoft released patches for Word X and Word 2004 that effectively eliminated the macro problem on the Mac by 2006. The tendency for people to exchange Word documents via email, USB flash drives, and floppy disks made this an especially attractive vector in 1999.
Word doesn’t save
It incorporates free online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneDrive, together with the addition of Microsoft’s AI, called Copilot. Computer Intelligence estimated in 1987 that Microsoft had only 4% of the Fortune 1000 PC word processor market, but during the first quarter of 1996, Word accounted for 80% of the worldwide word processor market. 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. Certain advanced features like table sorting or columns will not be displayed but are preserved as they were in the document. 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.
Password protection
It’s packed with features that help with creating, editing, and collaborating on documents, and most people are likely familiar with most of them due to the popularity of Word. Anyone in your organization can quickly create documents, presentations, and worksheets within a single, unified app experience. Onlyoffice is a web-based app with a clean interface for editing docs, spreadsheets, and slides.
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. Each binary word file is a Compound File, a hierarchical file system within a file. Microsoft Word’s native file formats are denoted either by a .doc or .docx filename extension.
The modern Word Mobile supports basic formatting, such as bolding, changing font size, and changing colors (from red, yellow, or green). Microsoft Write was part of a short-lived trend for “lightweight” Macintosh word processors initiated by the introduction of the Macintosh Portable and early PowerBook systems. Microsoft Write for the Atari ST is the Atari version of Microsoft Word 1.05 released for the Apple Macintosh while sharing the same name as the Microsoft Write program included in Windows during the 80s and early 90s. Word 2024, released on September 16, 2024, included Word session recovery, support for ODF 1.4, new theme and color palette and ability for easier collaboration.
Its first version of Word, Word 98, was released with Office 98 Macintosh Edition. Word 5.1 for Mac, released in 1992 ran on the original CPU and was the last to be specifically designed as a Macintosh application. Only the Mac version was WYSIWYG and used a graphical user interface, far ahead of the other platforms. The DOS, Mac, and Windows versions are quite different from each other. 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.
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. Other features, such as tracking changes, were made more similar with Office for Windows. It was the last version to run on the classic Mac OS and, on Mac OS X, it could only run within the Classic Environment.
