Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is a proprietary commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. 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 brand. According to Forrester Research, as of June 2009, some version of Microsoft Office is used in 80% of enterprises, with 64% of enterprises using Office 2007.

The current versions are Office 2010 for Windows, released on June 15, 2010; and Office 2011 for Mac OS X, released October 26, 2010.

Supported operating systems

Microsoft supports Office for the Windows and Mac platforms. Beginning with Mac Office 4.2, the Mac and Windows versions of Office share the same file format. Consequently, any Mac with Office 4.2 or later can read documents created with Office 4.2 for Windows or later, and vice-versa. Visual Basic for Applications support was dropped in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac but was restored in Microsoft Office for Mac 2011.

There were efforts in the mid 1990s to port Office to RISC processors such as NEC / MIPS and IBM / PowerPC, but they met problems such as memory access being hampered by data structure alignment requirements. Microsoft Word 97 and Excel 97 however did ship for the DEC Alpha platform. Difficulties in porting Office may have been a factor in discontinuing Windows NT on non-Intel platforms.

There is no mention of support for other operating systems, although Microsoft Office Mobile, which supports the more popular features of Microsoft Office, is available for Windows Mobile and is planned to soon be available for Symbian OS.

Crossover for Linux, by CodeWeavers, makes it possible to run Microsoft Office on the Linux platform. Doing so, however, requires a license for Microsoft Office for Windows, as well as a license for Crossover for Linux. Crossover is a computer code translation layer.

Support lifecycle

Version compatibility

Beginning in 3/02/89 , Microsoft instituted a new support lifecycle policy. Versions earlier than Office XP are no longer supported. For current and future versions of Office mainstream support will end five years after release, or two years after the next release, whichever time is later, and extended support will end five years after that.

Version history

Microsoft Windows versions

The Microsoft Office for Windows started in October 1990 as a bundle of three applications designed for Microsoft Windows 3.0: Microsoft Word for Windows 1.1, Microsoft Excel for Windows 2.0, and Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows 2.0.

The Microsoft Office for Windows 1.5 updated the suite with Microsoft Excel 3.0.

The Microsoft Office for Windows 1.6 added Microsoft Mail for PC Networks 2.1 to the bundle.

The Microsoft Office for Windows 3.0, released in August 1992, contained Word 2.0, Excel 4.0, PowerPoint 3.0 and Mail 3.0. It was the first version of Office to be also released on CD-ROM. In 1993, The Microsoft Office Professional was released, which added Microsoft Access 1.1.

In 1994, Microsoft Office 4.0 was released containing Word 6.0, Excel 4.0, PowerPoint 3.0 and Mail. Word's version number jumped from 2.0 to 6.0 so that it would have the same version number as the MS-DOS and Macintosh versions (Excel and PowerPoint were already numbered the same as the Macintosh versions).

Microsoft Office 4.2 for Windows NT was released in 1994 for i386, Alpha,  MIPS and PowerPC  architectures, containing Word 6.0 and Excel 5.0 (both 32-bit, PowerPoint 4.0 (16-bit), and Microsoft Office Manager 4.2 (the precursor to the Office Shortcut Bar).

Microsoft Office 4.3 was released as the last 16-bit version, containing Word 6.0, Excel 5.0, PowerPoint 4.0. Office 4.3 (plus Access 2.0 in the Pro version) is 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 were 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 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 VBA 6) that were digitally signed from authors who have been previously designated as trusted. Office 2000 is the last version to support Windows 95.

Macintosh versions

Prior to packaging its various office-type Macintosh software applications into Office, Microsoft released Mac versions of Word 1.0 in 1984, the first year of the Macintosh computer; Excel 1.0 in 1985; and PowerPoint 1.0 in 1987. Microsoft does not include its Access database application in Office for Mac.

Microsoft has noted that some features are added to Office for Mac before they appear in Windows versions, such as Office for Mac 2001's Office Project Gallery and PowerPoint Movie feature, which allows users to save presentations as QuickTime movies. However, Microsoft Office for Mac has been long criticized for its lack of support of Unicode and right-to-left languages, notably Arabic and Hebrew.

The Microsoft Office was introduced for Macintosh in 1989, before Office was released for Windows. It included Word 4.0, Excel 2.2, PowerPoint 2.01, and Mail 1.37. It was originally a limited-time promotion but later became a regular product. With the release of Office on CD-ROM later that year, Microsoft became the first major Mac publisher to put its applications on CD-ROM.

Microsoft Office 1.5 for Mac was released in 1991 and included the updated Excel 3.0, the first application to support Apple’s System 7 operating system.

Microsoft Office 3.0 for Mac was released in 1992. It included Word 5.0, Excel 4.0, and PowerPoint 3.0. Excel 4.0 was the first application to support the new AppleScript.

Microsoft Office 4.2 for Mac was released in 1994. (Version 4.0 was skipped to synchronize version numbers with Office for Windows.) Version 4.2 included Word 6.0, Excel 5.0, PowerPoint 4.0, and Mail 3.2. It was the first Office suite for the Power Macintosh. Its user interface was identical to Office 4.2 for Windows, leading many customers to comment that it wasn't Mac-like enough. The final release for Mac 68K was Office 4.2.1, which updated Word to version 6.0.1, somewhat improving its performance.

Microsoft Office 98 Macintosh Edition was unveiled at MacWorld Expo/San Francisco in 1998. It introduced the Internet Explorer 4.0 web browser and Outlook Express, an Internet e-mail client and usenet newsgroup reader.

Components

Microsoft Word is a word processor and was previously considered to be the main program in Office. Its proprietary DOC format is considered a de facto standard, although Word 2007 can also use a new XML-based, Microsoft Office-optimized format called .DOCX which has been standardized by Ecma International as Office Open XML and its SP2 update will support ODF and PDF. Word is also available in some editions of Microsoft Works. It is available for the Windows and Mac platforms. The first version of Word, released in the autumn of 1983, was for the MS-DOS operating system and had the distinction of introducing the mouse to a broad population. Word 1.0 could be purchased with a bundled mouse, though none was required. Following the precedents of LisaWrite and MacWrite, Word for Macintosh attempted to add closer WYSIWYG features into its package. Word for Mac was released in 1985. Word for Mac was the first graphical version of Microsoft Word. Despite its bugginess, it became one of the most popular Mac applications.

Excel

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program which originally competed with the dominant Lotus 1-2-3, but eventually outsold it. It is available for the Windows and Mac platforms. Microsoft released the first version of Excel for the Mac in 1985, and the first Windows version (numbered 2.05 to line up with the Mac and bundled with a standalone Windows run-time environment) in November 1987.

Outlook/Entourage

Main articles: Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Entourage

Microsoft Outlook (not to be confused with Outlook Express) is a personal information manager and e-mail communication software. The replacement for Windows Messaging, Microsoft Mail and Schedule+ starting in Office 97, it includes an e-mail client, calendar, task manager and address book.

On the Mac, Microsoft offered several versions of Outlook in the late 1990s, but only for use with Microsoft Exchange Server. In Office 2001, it introduced an alternative application with a slightly different feature set called Microsoft Entourage. It reintroduced Outlook in Office 2011, replacing Entourage.

PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint is a popular presentation program for Windows and Mac. It is used to create slideshows, composed of text, graphics, movies and other objects, which can be displayed on-screen and navigated through by the presenter or printed out on transparencies or slides.

Other desktop applications (Windows version only)

Microsoft Access — database manager

Microsoft InfoPath — an application to design rich XML-based forms

Microsoft OneNote — note-taking software for use with both tablet and conventional PCs

Microsoft Project — project management software to keep track of events and to create network charts and Gantt charts (not bundled in any Office suite)

Microsoft Publisher — desktop publishing software mostly used for designing brochures, labels, calendars, greeting cards, business cards, newsletters, and postcards.

Microsoft SharePoint Workspace (formerly known as Groove) — a proprietary peer-to-peer collaboration software leveled at businesses

Microsoft Visio — diagram and flowcharting software (not bundled in any Office suite)

Microsoft Office InterConnect — business-relationship database available only in Japan

Microsoft Office Picture Manager — basic photo management software (similar to Google's Picasa or Adobe's Photoshop Elements), replaced Microsoft Photo Editor

The following applications are no longer branded as part of Microsoft Office:

Microsoft SharePoint Designer — a WYSIWYG HTML editor and web design program for customizing SharePoint applications, it replaces Microsoft FrontPage (not bundled in any Office suite)

Microsoft Lync — Integrated communications client for conferences and meetings in real time (known as Microsoft Office Communicator in Office 2007, bundled with Professional Plus and Enterprise editions)

Server applications

Microsoft SharePoint Server — collaboration server

Excel Services

InfoPath Forms Services

Microsoft Lync Server (formerly Office Communications Server and Live Communications Server) — real time communications server

Microsoft Office Forms Server — allows InfoPath forms to be accessed and filled out using any browser. Office Forms Server is a standalone server installation of InfoPath Forms Services.

Microsoft Office Groove Server — centrally managing all deployments of Microsoft Office Groove in the enterprise

Microsoft Office Project Server — project management server

Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server — allows creation of a project portfolio, including workflows, hosted centrally

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server — allows customers to monitor, analyze, and plan their business

Web services

Office Web Apps — Web-based companions to Microsoft Office applications to view, create, and edit documents.

Office Live

Office Live Small Business — Web hosting services and online collaboration tools for small businesses.

Office Live Workspace — Online storage and collaboration service for documents, superseded by Office Web Apps and SkyDrive

Live Meeting — Web conferencing service.

Microsoft Office product web site — Provides support for all Microsoft Office products.

Microsoft Update — Web site. Patch detection and installation service for Microsoft Office.

Microsoft Office 365 - Cloud-based version of office, to be available for purchase in early 2011.

Common features

Most versions of Microsoft Office (including Office 97 and later) use their own widget set and do not exactly match the native operating system. This is most apparent in Microsoft Office XP and 2003, where the standard menus were replaced with a colored flat looking, shadowed menu style. The user interface of a particular version of Microsoft Office often heavily influences a subsequent version of Microsoft Windows. For example, the toolbar, colored buttons and the gray-colored '3D' look of Office 4.3 were added to Windows 95. The Ribbon, introduced in Office 2007, has been incorporated into several applications bundled with Windows 7.

Users of Microsoft Office may access external data via connection-specifications saved in "Office Data Connection" (.odc) files.

Both Windows and Office use "Service Packs" to update software, Office used to release non-cumulative "Service Releases", which were discontinued after Office 2000 Service Release 1.

Programs in past versions of Office often contained substantial Easter eggs. For example, Excel 97 contained a reasonably functional flight-simulator. Versions starting with Office XP have not contained any easter eggs in the name of Trustworthy Computing.

File formats and metadata

Microsoft Office prior to Office 2007 used proprietary file formats. This forced users who share data to adopt the same software platform. In 2008, Microsoft made the entire documentation for the binary Office formats freely available for download and granted any possible patents rights for use or implementations of those binary format for free under the Open Specification Promise. Previously, Microsoft had supplied such documentation freely but only on request.

Starting with Office 2007, the default file format has been a version of Office Open XML, not directly the same as the one which has been standardized and published by Ecma International and by ISO/IEC. Microsoft has granted patent rights to the formats technology under the Open Specification Promise and has made available free downloadable converters for previous versions of Microsoft Office including Office 2003, Office XP, Office 2000 and Office 2004 for the Mac. Third-party implementations of Office Open XML exist on the Mac platform (iWork '08) and Linux (OpenOffice.org 3.0). In addition, Service Pack 2 for Office 2007 supports the OpenDocument Format (ODF) for opening and saving documents.

Microsoft provides the ability to remove metadata from Office documents. This was in response to highly publicized incidents where sensitive data about a document was leaked via its metadata. Metadata removal was first available in 2004, when Microsoft released a tool called Remove Hidden Data Add-in for Office 2003/XP for this purpose It was directly integrated into Office 2007 in a feature called the Document Inspector.

Extensibility

A major feature of the Office suite is the ability for users and third party companies to write add-ins (plug-ins) that extend the capabilities of an application by adding custom commands and specialized features. The type of add-ins supported differ by Office versions:

Office 97 onwards (standard Windows DLLs i.e. Word WLLs and Excel XLLs)

Office 2000 onwards (COM add-ins)

Office XP onwards (COM/OLE Automation add-ins)

Office 2003 onwards (Managed code add-ins - VSTO solutions)