Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is a word processor developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS (1983), the Apple Macintosh (1985), the AT&T Unix PC (1985), Atari ST (1988), OS/2 (1989), and Microsoft Windows (1989). It is a component of the Microsoft Office suite, which is available for both Windows and macOS.

History

Microsoft Word was initially developed by Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie, former Xerox PARC programmers hired by Microsoft. The first version of Word, Word 1.0, was released in 1983. It introduced many features that are now standard in word processors, such as the ability to display bold and italic text, and support for WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing.

Features

Microsoft Word includes a wide range of features, including:

• Text formatting options such as bold, italic, underline, font size, and color.
• Spell check and grammar check.
• Thesaurus and dictionary tools.
• Mail merge capabilities.
• Table creation and editing.
• Image and graphic insertion and editing.
• Macro programming using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).
• Collaboration tools, including track changes and comments.
• Cloud storage integration with OneDrive.

File Formats

Microsoft Word primarily uses the DOC and DOCX file formats. The DOC format was used in early versions of Word, while the DOCX format, introduced with Word 2007, is based on Office Open XML standards. Word can also open and save documents in other formats, such as RTF, HTML, PDF, and ODT.

Compatibility

Microsoft Word is compatible with both Windows and macOS operating systems. It is also available as part of the Microsoft Office 365 subscription service, which includes access to the web-based version of Word, known as Word Online.

Versions

Some notable versions of Microsoft Word include:

• Word 1.0 (1983)
• Word 2.0 (1985)
• Word 6.0 (1993)
• Word 97 (1997)
• Word 2000 (1999)
• Word 2003 (2003)
• Word 2007 (2007)
• Word 2010 (2010)
• Word 2013 (2013)
• Word 2016 (2015)
• Word 2019 (2018)
• Word for Microsoft 365 (ongoing)

See Also

• Microsoft Office
• Word processor
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Office Open XML
• LibreOffice Writer
• Google Docs