In addition to the default Word binary formats, there are actually a number of optional alternate file formats that Microsoft has used over the years. Rich Text Format RTF was an early effort to create a format for interchanging formatted text between applications. RTF remains an optional format for Word that retains most formatting and all content of the original document. Word and uses the new Microsoft Office Open XML format as its default format, but retains the older Word 97— format as an option.

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.

WordArt also changed drastically in a recent version causing problems with documents that used it when moving in either direction.

The DOC format’s specifications are not available for public download but can be received by writing to Microsoft directly and signing an agreement. The latest format, DOCX, is publicly documented. Microsoft Word implemented OLE Object Linking and Embedding to manage the structure of its file format, easily identifiable by the.

OLE behaves rather like a conventional hard drive filesystem, 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 byte chunks, hence a Word documents filesize will always be a multiple of 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. The “File information block” contains information about where the text in a word document starts, ends, what version of Word created the document and so forth.

Needless to say, Word documents are far more complex than perhaps initially expected, perhaps necessarily, or in part to prevent third-parties designing interoperable applications. People who do not use Microsoft Office sometimes find it difficult to use a Word document. Various solutions have been created. Since the format is a de facto standard, many word processors such as AbiWord or OpenOffice.

Most of this interoperability is achieved through reverse engineering since documentation of the Word 1. The Word file format, however, is publicly documented. For the last 10 years Microsoft has also made available freeware viewer programs for Windows that can read Word documents without a full version of the Microsoft Word software.

Microsoft has also provided converters that enable different versions of Word to import and export to older Word versions and other formats and converters for older Word versions to read documents created in newer Word formats.

The aforementioned Word format is a binary format. This format does not conform fully to standard XML. It is, however, publicly documented as ECMA standard Public documentation of the default file format is a first for Word, and makes it considerably easier, though not trivial, for competitors to interoperate.

Efforts to establish it as an ISO standard are also underway. It is possible to write plugins permitting Word to read and write formats it does not natively support. Without configuration the program saved the document in a proprietary file format , so other programs could not open it.

When the user sent his document to a friend, the friend needed a copy of Microsoft Word to read the document.

Then that friend would probably also save documents in the same secret format of Word. This gave Microsoft Word a dominant position. Microsoft Word – Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Similar to other word processors, it has helpful tools to make documents.

Tables Displays synonyms of words and can read out the text Prints in different ways Microsoft Word is a part of Microsoft Office , but can also be bought separately. Contents 1History 1. Versions[ change change source ] There are versions for Microsoft Word for other operating systems as well as Microsoft Windows. For Microsoft Windows [ change change source ] Word for Windows 1.

Word for Windows 1. Word for Windows 2. Word for Windows 6. September 3, July 1, August 23, Retrieved October 19, June 16, Retrieved October 2, Retrieved August 14, The Register. Situation Publishing. Retrieved March 4, Privacy Company. Retrieved May 2, Microsoft Office.

History Microsoft Discontinued shared tools Accounting Docs. Authority control: National libraries Czech Republic. Categories : software Microsoft Office Microsoft software. Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description matches Wikidata Use mdy dates from September All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from July Articles with unsourced statements from October Articles with NKC identifiers.

Namespaces Article Talk. Views Read Edit View history. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file. Office was released to manufacturing on April 15, , and was later made available for retail and online purchase on June 15, It is the successor to Office and the predecessor to Office The release of Word has brought Word a cleaner look and this version focuses further on Cloud Computing with documents being saved automatically to OneDrive previously Skydrive.

If enabled, documents and settings roam with the user. Other notable features are a new read mode which allows for horizontal scrolling of pages in columns, a bookmark to find where the user left off reading their document and opening PDF documents in Word just like Word content.

The version released for the Windows 8 operating system is modified for use with a touchscreen and on tablets. On July 9, , Microsoft Word was released. Features include the tell me, share and faster shape formatting options. Other useful features include realtime collaboration, which allows users to store documents on Share Point or OneDrive, as well as an improved version history and a smart lookup tool.

As usual, several editions of the program were released, including one for home and one for business. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

See also: Microsoft Office See also: Microsoft Office XP. See also: Microsoft Office for Mac. See also: Microsoft Office for Mac Retrieved May 20, Retrieved March 29, Official Microsoft Blog.

Archived from the original on March 28, June 17, Retrieved December 21, Retrieved July 9, Retrieved May 2, Security Engineering 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing. ISBN April Archived from the original on December 20, Retrieved May 25, Archived from the original on April 12,

History of Microsoft Word – Wikipedia

 
Exchange Server , a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft , is the server for Outlook after discontinuing Exchange Client.