Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is a word processor program from Microsoft. It was originally written for IBM PC computers running MS-DOS in 1983. Later versions were created for the Apple Macintosh (1984) and Microsoft Windows (1989), and it became part of the Microsoft Office suite.

Word was the first popular word processor for the IBM PC that used a graphic display mode to show typeface markups such as bold and italics directly on the screen while editing (WYSIWYG). Previous word processors, such as WordStar, used simple text-only display with markup codes on the screen or sometimes, at the most, alternate colors.

Like other Microsoft Office applications, it can be highly customised using a built-in macro language (originally WordBasic, but changed to Visual Basic for Applications as of Word 97). However, this capability can also be used to embed viruses in documents, as was demonstrated by the Melissa worm. Because of this, users having Microsoft Word installed should refrain from having it configured to open Microsoft Word documents received -- by email or otherwise -- from untrusted sources. In this case also, a minimum precaution is to have anti-virus software[?] installed in order to avoid being infected by such a virus or acting as a source of infection. The first virus known to affect Microsoft Word documents was called the Concept virus, and it first appeared on a CD that was published by Microsoft.

Microsoft Word is the dominant word processor in current use, making Word's proprietary file format the de facto standard which competing products must support to interoperate in an office environment. See the article word processor for a list of other word processors.

Later versions of Word have more capabilities than just word processing. The Drawing tool allows simple desktop publishing operations such as adding graphics to documents although Microsoft Publisher[?] is obviously better at these tasks. Word also comes with rudimentary drawing tools which allow the drawing of simple diagrams or business graphics. See How to draw a diagram with Microsoft Word for a step-by-step tutorial on how to use the drawing tools to produce simple diagrams.

Versions for Microsoft Windows include:

• Word for Windows
• Word 2 for Windows
• Word 6 for Windows (numbered "6" to imply a superiority to Word Perfect 5.1)
• Word 95, also known as Word 7
• Word 97, also known as Word 8
• Word 2000, also known as Word 9
• Word 2002, also known as Word 10 but often referred to as Word XP

Versions for Apple Macintosh include:

• Word 98
• Word 2001
• Word v.X