Microsoft Office

 

Microsoft Office is an office suit of interrelated desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. Microsoft Office was introduced by Microsoft in 1989 for Mac OS, with a version for Windows in 1990. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Additionally, a "Pro" (Professional) version of Office included Microsoft Access and Schedule Plus. Over the years, Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, OLE data integration and Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications scripting language. Microsoft also positions Office as a development platform for line-of-business software under the Office Business Applications (OBA) brand.

The current versions are Office 2007 for Windows which was released on January 30, 2007, and Office 2008 for Mac OS X, released January 15, 2008. Office 2007/Office 2008 introduced a new user interface and new Office Open XML document formats (docx, xlsx, pptx). Consequently, Microsoft has made available, free of charge, an add-on known as the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack to allow Office 2000-2003 for Windows and Office 2004 for Mac editions to open, edit, and save documents created under the new formats for Office 2007.

Microsoft Windows Versions

Microsoft Office 3.0 was the first version of Office to be released for the Microsoft Windows operating system in August 1992.

In 1994, Microsoft Office 4.0 was released containing Word 6.0, Excel 5.0, PowerPoint 4.0, Mail, and Access. Word was called Word 6.0 at this point despite the fact the previous version number was 2.0. The purpose was to use common version numbering with the Mac OS version. Microsoft Office 4.3 was released as the last 16-bit version, and is also the last version to support Windows 3.x, Windows NT 3.1 and Windows NT 3.5. Windows NT 3.51 was supported up to and including Office 97.

Microsoft Office 95 was released in August 1995. Again, the version numbers was altered to create parity across the suite- every program was called version 7.0 meaning all but Word missed out versions. It was designed as a fully 32-bit version to match Windows 95. Office 95 was available in two versions, Office 95 Standard and Office 95 Professional. The standard version consisted of Word 7.0, Excel 7.0, PowerPoint 7.0, and Schedule+ 7.0. The professional edition contained all of the items in the standard version plus Access 7.0. If the professional version was purchased in CD-ROM form, it also included Bookshelf.

Microsoft Office 97 (Office 8.0), a major milestone release which included hundreds of new features and improvements, introduced command bars, a paradigm in which menus and toolbars were made more similar in capability and visual design. Office 97 also featured Natural Language Systems and sophisticated grammar checking. Office 97 was the first version of Office to include the Office Assistant.

Microsoft Office 2000 (Office 9.0) introduced adaptive menus, where little-used options were hidden from the user. It also introduced a new security feature, built around digital signatures, to diminish the threat of macro viruses. Office 2000 automatically trusts macros (written in VBA6) that were digitally signed from authors who have been previously designated as trusted. Office 2000 is the last version to support Windows 95, and the first version to include Product Activation.

Microsoft Office XP (Office 10.0 or Office 2002) was released in conjunction with Windows XP, and was a major upgrade with numerous enhancements and changes over Office 2000. Office XP introduced the Safe Mode feature, which allows applications such as Outlook to boot when it might otherwise fail. Safe Mode enables Office to detect and either repair or bypass the source of the problem, such as a corrupted registry or a faulty add-in. Smart tag is a technology introduced with Office XP. Some smart tags operate based on user activity, such as helping with typing errors. These smart tags are supplied with the products, and are not programmable. For developers, though, there is the ability to create custom smart tags. In Office XP, custom smart tags could work only in Word and Excel. Microsoft Office XP includes integrated voice command and text dictation capabilities, as well as handwriting recognition. Office XP is the last version to support Windows 98, ME and NT 4.0. Office XP is also the earliest Office reported to work well with Windows Vista.

Microsoft Office 2003 (Office 11.0) was released in 2003. It features a new logo. Two new applications made their debut in Office 2003: Microsoft InfoPath and OneNote. It is the first version to use Windows XP style icons. Outlook 2003 provides improved functionality in many areas, including Kerberos authentication, RPC over HTTP, and Cached Exchange Mode. The key benefit of Outlook 2003 is the improved junk mail filter. 2003 is the last Office version to support Windows 2000.

Microsoft Office 2007 (Office 12.0) was released in 2007 and is the most current retail version. It includes Groove, a collaborative software application. Office 2007 contains a number of new features, the most notable of which is the entirely new graphical user interface called the Fluent User Interface (initially referred to as the Ribbon UI), replacing the menus and toolbars that have been the cornerstone of Office since its inception with a tabbed toolbar, known as the Ribbon. Microsoft revealed the "Ribbon" UI used on new Office versions on March 9, 2006 at CeBIT, Germany. Office 2007 requires Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or 3, Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 or higher, or Windows Vista^]. On May 21, 2008, Microsoft announced that Office 2007 Service Pack 2 will add native support for the Open Document Format. The EU announced it is going to investigate Microsoft Office Open Document Format support.

Microsoft Office 2010 (Office 14.0) is still currently under development. It is due to be released in 2010. Version 13.0 was skipped because of superstition relating to the number thirteen. The Technical Preview 1 (Version: 14.0.4006.1010) has been leaked on May 15, 2009. On July 13 Microsoft officially announced Office 2010 at the WPC 09. July 13 was also the date on which a new Technical Preview leaked Version 14.0.4302.1000. Microsoft will be releasing Office 2010 within two months of the release of Windows 7, certainly before the new year.

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