Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office

Clockwise: Microsoft Office Excel, Word, OneNote and

PowerPoint on Windows Vista.

Design by Microsoft

Developed by Microsoft

Initial release 1990

Latest release 2007 SP1 (12.0.6215.1000) / December 11, 2007;

233 days ago

Written in C++/MFC, C#/.NET

OS Microsoft Windows

Platform Cross-platform
Available in over 35 languages

Genre Office suite

License Proprietary

Website Microsoft Office for Windows

Microsoft Office:mac

Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac applications (Word, Excel,

PowerPoint, Entourage; plus Word Publishing Layout and
Word Notebook Layout views) running on Mac OS X v10.5

Design by Microsoft

Developed by Microsoft

Initial release 1989

Latest release 2008 (12.1)

Written in C++, Carbon

OS Mac OS X

Platform Cross-platform

Genre Office suite

License Proprietary

Website Microsoft Office for Mac

Microsoft Office is a set of interrelated desktop applications, servers and services, collectively
referred to as an office suite, for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems.
Office was introduced by Microsoft in 1989 on Mac OS,[1] with a version for Windows in 1990. [2]
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" 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, launched on January 30, 2007,[3] and Office
2008 for Mac OS X, released January 15, 2008. Office 2007/Office 2008 features a new user
interface and a new OOXML-based primary file format (docx, xlsx, pptx). Microsoft has made
available a free add-on known as the "Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack" that lets Office
2000-2003 editions open, edit, and save documents created under the new Office 2007 formats.

Contents

[hide]

• 1 History
o 1.1 History of Microsoft Office for Microsoft Windows
o 1.2 History of Microsoft Office for Macintosh
• 2 Components
 o 2.1 Desktop applications
 2.1.1 Word
 2.1.2 Excel
 2.1.3 Outlook/Entourage
 2.1.4 PowerPoint
 2.1.5 Other desktop applications (Windows version only)
o 2.2 Server applications
 2.2.1 Web services
• 3 Common features
• 4 Extensibility
• 5 Cross-platform
• 6 Support lifecycle
o 6.1 Version Compatibility
o 6.2 Discontinued applications and features
• 7 Criticisms
• 8 See also
• 9 References

• 10 External links

[edit] History

Main article: History of Microsoft Office

The very first version of Microsoft Office was released in 1989, not for Windows, but for the
Apple Macintosh. Microsoft Office has long been the dominant player when it comes to software
that offer word-processing, spreadsheet, and presentation tools.[4][5][6]

[edit] History of Microsoft Office for Microsoft Windows

• Microsoft Office 3.0 was the first version of Office to be released for the Microsoft
Windows operating system.
• Microsoft Office 4.0 was released in 1994, 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 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 done 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 consists of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Schedule+. The
professional edition contains all of the items in the standard version plus Access. If the
professional version is purchased in CD-ROM form, it also includes Bookshelf.
• Microsoft Office 97, 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.
• Microsoft Office 2000 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.
 • Microsoft Office XP, released in conjunction with Windows XP, is a major upgrade
with numerous enhancements and changes. Office XP introduced the Safe Mode
feature. It 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 misbehaving add-in. Smart tag is a
technology delivered 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. Another feature introduced with
Office XP is Product Activation, which is also implemented in Windows XP (and later
versions of Windows and Office). Office XP is the oldest Office reported to work well
with Vista (however Outlook 2002 (XP) does have some serious problems with Vista
such as not remembering email account passwords), and is also the last version to
support Windows 98/ME/NT 4.0.
• Microsoft Office 2003 was released in 2003. 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.
• Microsoft Office 2007 was released in 2007. On May 21, 2008 Microsoft announced
that Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 will add native support for the
OpenDocument Format.[7] EU announced it is going to investigate Microsoft Office
OpenDocument Format support.[8]

Microsoft Word

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Microsoft Office Word)

Jump to: navigation, search

Microsoft Word (Windows)

Microsoft Office Word 2007 in Windows Vista

Developed by Microsoft

Latest release 12.0.6211.1000 (2007 SP1) / December 11, 2007

 OS Microsoft Windows

Genre Word processor

License Proprietary EULA

Website Microsoft Office Word Homepage

Microsoft Word (Mac OS X)

Microsoft Word:Mac 2008 running on Mac OS X 10.5.

Developed by Microsoft

Latest release 12.1.1 Buid 080522 (2008) / May 14, 2008

OS Mac OS X

Genre Word processor

License Proprietary EULA

Website Microsoft Word: Mac 2008

Microsoft Word is Microsoft's flagship word processing software. It was first released in 1983
under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems.[1][2][3] Versions were later written for several
other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS (1983), the Apple Macintosh (1984), SCO
UNIX, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows (1989). It is a component of the Microsoft Office system;
however, it is also sold as a standalone product and included in Microsoft Works Suite.
Beginning with the 2003 version, the branding was revised to emphasize Word's identity as a
component within the Office suite; Microsoft began calling it Microsoft Office Word instead of
merely Microsoft Word. The latest releases are Word 2007 for Windows and Word 2008 for Mac
OS X.
Contents

[hide]

• 1 History
o 1.1 Word 1981 to 1989
o 1.2 Word 1990 to 1995
o 1.3 Word 97
o 1.4 Word 98
o 1.5 Word 2000
o 1.6 Word 2001/Word X
o 1.7 Word 2002/XP
o 1.8 Word 2003
o 1.9 Word 2004
o 1.10 Word 2007
o 1.11 Word 2008
• 2 File formats
o 2.1 File Extension
o 2.2 Binary Formats (Word 97-2003)
o 2.3 Microsoft Office Open XML (Word 2007 and above)
o 2.4 Attempts at cross-version compatibility
o 2.5 Alternative Editors
o 2.6 Third Party Formats
• 3 Features and flaws
o 3.1 Normal.dot
o 3.2 Macros
o 3.3 Layout issues
o 3.4 Bullets and numbering
o 3.5 Creating Tables
o 3.6 AutoSummarize
o 3.7 AutoCorrect
• 4 Versions
• 5 See also
• 6 Further reading
• 7 References

• 8 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Word 1981 to 1989

Concepts and ideas of Word were brought from Bravo, the original GUI word processor
developed at Xerox PARC. Bravo's creator Charles Simonyi left PARC to work for Microsoft in
1981. Simonyi hired Richard Brodie, who had worked with him on Bravo, away from PARC
that summer.[4][5] On February 1, 1983, development on what was originally named Multi-Tool
Word began.

Having renamed it Microsoft Word, Microsoft released the program October 25, 1983, for the
IBM PC. Free demonstration copies of the application were bundled with the November 1983
issue of PC World, making it the first program to be distributed on-disk with a magazine.[1]
However, it was not well received, and sales lagged behind those of rival products such as
WordPerfect.[citation needed]
Word featured a concept of "What You See Is What You Get", or WYSIWYG, and was the first
application with such features as the ability to display bold and italics text on an IBM PC.[1]
Word made full use of the mouse, which was so unusual at the time that Microsoft offered a
bundled Word-with-Mouse package. Although MS-DOS was a character-based system,
Microsoft Word was the first word processor for the IBM PC that showed actual line breaks
and typeface markups such as bold and italics directly on the screen while editing, although this
was not a true WYSIWYG system because available displays did not have the resolution to
show actual typefaces. Other DOS word processors, such as WordStar and WordPerfect, used
simple text only display with markup codes on the screen or sometimes, at the most, alternative
colors.[6]

As with most D.O.S. software, each program had its own, often complicated, set of commands
and nomenclature for performing functions that had to be learned. For example, in Word for
MS-DOS, a file would be saved with the sequence Escape-T-S: pressing Escape called up the
menu box, T accessed the set of options for Transfer and S was for Save (the only similar
interface belonged to Microsoft's own Multiplan spreadsheet). As most secretaries had learned
how to use WordPerfect, companies were reluctant to switch to a rival product that offered few
advantages. Desired features in Word such as indentation before typing (emulating the F4
feature in WordPerfect), the ability to block text to copy it before typing, instead of picking up
mouse or blocking after typing, and a reliable way to have macros and other functions always
replicate the same function time after time, were just some of Word's problems for production
typing.

Word for Macintosh, despite the major differences in look and feel from the DOS version, was
ported by Ken Shapiro with only minor changes from the DOS source code, [citation needed] which had
been written with high-resolution displays and laser printers in mind although none were yet
available to the general public. Following the introduction of LisaWrite and MacWrite, Word
for Macintosh attempted to add closer WYSIWYG features into its package. After Word for
Mac was released in 1985, it gained wide acceptance. There was no Word 2.0 for Macintosh; this
was the first attempt to synchronize version numbers across platforms.

The second release of Word for Macintosh, named Word 3.0, was shipped in 1987. It included
numerous internal enhancements and new features but was plagued with bugs. Within a few
months Word 3.0 was superseded by Word 3.01, which was much more stable. All registered
users of 3.0 were mailed free copies of 3.01, making this one of Microsoft's most expensive
mistakes up to that time. Word 4.0 was released in 1989.

[edit] Word 1990 to 1995

Microsoft Word 5.1a (Macintosh)

The first version of Word for Windows was released in 1989 at a price of 500 US dollars[citation
needed]
. With the release of Windows 3.0 the following year, sales began to pick up (Word for
Windows 1.0 was designed for use with Windows 3.0, and its performance was poorer with the
versions of Windows available when it was first released). The failure of WordPerfect to
produce a Windows version proved a fatal mistake. It was version 2.0 of Word, however, that
firmly established Microsoft Word as the market leader.[citation needed]

After MacWrite, Word for Macintosh never had any serious rivals, although programs such as
Nisus Writer provided features such as non-contiguous selection which were not added until
Word 2002 in Office XP. In addition, many users complained that major updates reliably came
more than two years apart, too long for most business users at that time.

Word 5.1 for the Macintosh, released in 1992, was a very popular word processor due to its
elegance, relative ease of use, and feature set. However, version 6.0 for the Macintosh, released
in 1994, was widely derided, unlike the Windows version. It was the first version of Word based
on a common codebase between the Windows and Mac versions; many accused it of being slow,
clumsy and memory intensive. In response to user requests, Microsoft offered a free
"downgrade" to Word 5.1 for dissatisfied Word 6.0 purchasers. The equivalent Windows
version was also numbered 6.0 to coordinate product naming across platforms, despite the fact
that the previous version was Word for Windows 2.0.

When Microsoft became aware of the Year 2000 problem, it released the entire version of DOS
port of Microsoft Word 5.5 instead of getting people to pay for the update. As of July 2008, it is
still available for download from Microsoft's web site.[7]

Word 6.0 was the second attempt to develop a common codebase version of Word. The first,
code-named Pyramid, had been an attempt to completely rewrite the existing Word product. It
was abandoned when it was determined that it would take the development team too long to
rewrite and then catch up with all the new capabilities that could have been added in the same
time without a rewrite. Proponents of Pyramid claimed it would have been faster, smaller, and
more stable than the product that was eventually released for Macintosh, which was compiled
using a beta version of Visual C++ 2.0 that targets the Macintosh, so many optimizations have to
be turned off (the version 4.2.1 of Office is compiled using the final version), and sometimes use
the Windows API simulation library included.[8] Pyramid would have been truly cross-platform,
with machine-independent application code and a small mediation layer between the
application and the operating system.

More recent versions of Word for Macintosh are no longer ported versions of Word for
Windows although some code is often appropriated from the Windows version for the
Macintosh version.[citation needed]

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.
Collaboration, document comparison, multilingual support, translation and many other
capabilities have been added over the years.[citation needed]

[edit] Word 97

Word 95 & 97 icon

Word 97 had the same general operating performance as later versions such as Word 2000. This
was the first copy of Word featuring the "Office Assistant", which was an animated helper used
in all Office programs. This was a take over from the earlier launched concept in Microsoft Bob.

[edit] Word 98
Word 98 for the Macintosh gained many features of Word 97, and was bundled with the
Macintosh Office 98 package. Document compatibility reached parity with Office 97 and Word
on the Mac became a viable business alternative to its Windows counterpart. Unfortunately,
Word on the Mac in this and later releases also became vulnerable to future Macro viruses that
could compromise Word (and Excel) documents, leading to the only situation where viruses
could be cross-platform.

[edit] Word 2000

For most users, one of the most obvious changes introduced with Word 2000 (and the rest of the
Office 2000 suite) was a clipboard that could hold multiple objects at once. Another noticeable
change was that the Office Assistant, whose frequent unsolicited appearance in Word 97 had
annoyed many users, was changed to be less intrusive.

[edit] Word 2001/Word X

Word 2001 was bundled with the Macintosh Office for that platform, acquiring most, if not all,
of the feature set of Word 2000. Released in October 2000. Word 2001 was also sold individually
apart from the Office suite. The Macintosh version, Word X, released in 2001, was the first
version to run natively on (and require) Mac OS X.

[edit] Word 2002/XP

Word 2002 was bundled with Office XP and was released in 2001. It had many of the same
features as Word 2000 but had a major new feature called the 'Task Panes', which gave quicker
information and control to a lot of features that were only available in modal dialog boxes
before. One of the key advertising strategies for the software was the removal of the Office
Assistant in favor of a new help system, although it was simply disabled by default.

[edit] Word 2003

Office Word 2003

For the 2003 version, the Office programs, including Word, were rebranded to emphasize the
unity of the Office suite, so that Microsoft Word officially became Microsoft Office Word. Users
continue to use both names.

[edit] Word 2004

A new Macintosh version of Office was released in May 2004. Substantial cleanup of the various
applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and feature parity with Office 2003 (for Microsoft
Windows) created a very usable release. Microsoft released patches through the years to
eliminate most known Macro vulnerabilities from this version. While Apple released Pages and
the open source community created NeoOffice, Word remains the most widely used word
processor on the Macintosh.
[edit] Word 2007

See also: Microsoft Office 2007

The release includes numerous changes, including a new XML-based file format, a redesigned
interface, an integrated equation editor and bibliographic management. Additionally, an XML
data bag was introduced, accessible via the object model and file format, called Custom XML -
this can be used in conjunction with a new feature called Content Controls implement
structured documents. It also has contextual tabs, which are functionality specific only to the
object with focus, and many other features like Live Preview (which enables you to view the
document without making any permanent changes), Mini Toolbar, Super-tooltips, Quick Access
toolbar, SmartArt, etc.

Word 2007 uses a new file format called docx. Word 2000-2003 users on Windows systems can
install a free add-on called the "Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack" to be able to open, edit,
and save the new Word 2007 files.[9] Alternatively, Word 2007 can save to the old doc format of
Word 97-2003.[10][11]

[edit] Word 2008

See also: Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac

Word 2008 is the most recent version of Microsoft Word for the Mac, released on January 15,
2008. It includes some new features from Word 2007, such as a ribbon-like feature that can be
used to select page layouts and insert custom diagrams and images. Word 2008 also features
native support for the new Office Open XML format, although the old .doc format can be set as
a default.[12]

[edit] File formats

[edit] File Extension

Microsoft Word's native file formats are denoted either by a .doc or .docx file extension.

Although the ".doc" extension has been used in many different versions of Word, it actually
encompasses four distinct file formats:

1. Word for DOS

2. Word for Windows 1 and 2; Word 4 and 5 for Mac
3. Word 6 and Word 95; Word 6 for Mac
4. Word 97, 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2007; Word 98, 2001, X, and 2004 for Mac

The newer ".docx" extension signifies Office Open XML and is used by Word 2007 for
Windows and Word 2008 for the Macintosh.

Microsoft does not guarantee the correct display of the document on different workstations,
even if the two workstations use the same version of Microsoft Word.[13] This means it is possible
the document the recipient sees might not be exactly the same as the document the sender sees.

[edit] Binary Formats (Word 97-2003)

As Word became the dominant word processor in the late 1990s and early 2000s [citation needed], Word
document formats (.DOC) became a de facto standard of document file formats due to their
popularity. Though usually just referred to as "Word Document Format", this term refers
primarily to the range of formats used by default in Word version 97–2003. Word document
files using the Word 97-2003 Binary File Format implement OLE (Object Linking and
Embedding) structured storage to manage the structure of its file format. OLE behaves rather
like a conventional hard drive file system, 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) 512-byte chunks; hence a Word document's file size will always be a multiple of 512.
"Storages" are analogues of the directory on a disk drive, and point to other storages or
"streams" which are similar to files on a disk. 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. "Property storages" provide metadata about the storages and streams in a
.doc file, such as where it begins and its name and so forth. The "File information block"
contains information about where the text in a word document starts, ends, what version of
Word created the document, and other attributes.

[edit] Microsoft Office Open XML (Word 2007 and above)

Word 2007 uses Microsoft Office Open XML as its default format, but retains the older binary
format for compatibility reasons. It also supports (for output only) PDF and XPS format.
Microsoft has published specifications for the Word 97-2007 Binary File Format[14] and the
Office Open XML format.[15] Microsoft has moved towards an XML-based file format for their
office applications with Office 2007: Microsoft Office Open XML. This format does not conform
fully to standard XML. It is, however, publicly documented as Ecma standard 376. Public
documentation of the default file format is a first for Word, and makes it considerably easier,
though not trivial, for competitors to interoperate. It's been approved as an international
standard by ISO (ISO/IEC 29500), but the approval is under review following objections by ISO
members South Africa, Brazil, India and Venezuela[16]. Another XML-based, public file format
supported by Word 2003 is WordprocessingML.

[edit] Attempts at cross-version compatibility

Opening a Word Document file in a version of Word other than the one with which it was
created can cause incorrect display of the document. 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. Rich Text Format (RTF), an early effort to
create a format for interchanging formatted text between applications, is an optional format for
Word that retains most formatting and all content of the original document. Later, after HTML
appeared, Word supported an HTML derivative as an additional full-fidelity roundtrip format
similar to RTF, with the additional capability that the file could be viewed in a web browser.

[edit] Alternative Editors

People who do not use Microsoft Office sometimes find it difficult to use a Word document.[citation
needed]
Because the formats are de facto standards, many word processors such as AbiWord or
OpenOffice.org Writer include file import and export filters for the Word Binary File Format to
compete. Furthermore, there is Apache POI, which is an open-source Java library that aims to
read and write such documents. Macintosh users had file translator filters such as MacLink
Plus with the ability to interconvert Word, Works, WordPerfect, NisysWriter and many other
formats. Most of this interoperability has been achieved through reverse engineering since, with
the exception of RTF, documentation of the Word file formats was not publicly available until
February 2008.

For the last 10 years Microsoft has also made available freeware viewer programs,[17] but only
for Windows, that can read Word documents without a full version of Microsoft Word needing
to be installed. It is also possible to use compatible office suites like OpenOffice.org or Google
Docs to open Word documents on every supported platform free of charge. 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.[18] The whole Office product range is covered by the Office Converter
Pack for Office 97–2003 and Office Compatibility Pack for Office 2000–2007 since the release of
Office 2007.[19]
[edit] Third Party Formats

It is possible to write plugins permitting Word to read and write formats it does not natively
support, such as OpenDocument. Word is incapable of reading or writing OpenDocument
documents without such a plugin.

[edit] Features and flaws

Word has a built-in spell checker, thesaurus, dictionary and Office Assistant.

[edit] Normal.dot

Normal.dot is the master template from which all Word documents are created. It is one of the
most important files in Microsoft Word. It determines the margin defaults as well as the layout
of the text and font defaults. Although normal.dot is already set with certain defaults, the user
can change normal.dot to new defaults. This will change other documents that were created
using the template and saved with the option to automatically update the formatting styles.

[edit] Macros

Like other Microsoft Office documents, Word files can include advanced macros and even
embedded programs. The language was originally WordBasic, but changed to Visual Basic for
Applications as of Word 97.

This extensive functionality can also be used to run and propagate viruses in documents. The
tendency for people to exchange Word documents via email, USB key, and floppy makes this an
especially attractive vector. A prominent example is the Melissa worm, but countless others have
existed in the wild. Some anti-virus software can detect and clean common macro viruses, and
firewalls may prevent worms from transmitting themselves to other systems.

These Macro viruses are the only known cross-platform threats between Windows and
Macintosh computers and they were the only infection vectors to affect any Mac OS X system
up until the advent of video codec trojans in 2007. Microsoft's released patches for Word X and
Word 2004 effectively eliminated the Macro problem on the Mac by 2006.

Word's macro security setting, which regulates when macros may execute, can be adjusted by
the user, but in the most recent versions of Word, is set to HIGH by default, generally reducing
the risk from macro-based viruses, which have become uncommon.

[edit] Layout issues

As of Word 2007 for Windows (and Word 2004 for Macintosh), the program has been unable to
handle ligatures defined in TrueType fonts: those ligature glyphs with Unicode codepoints may
be inserted manually, but are not recognized by Word for what they are, breaking
spellchecking, while custom ligatures present in the font are not accessible at all. Other layout
deficiencies of Word include the inability to set crop marks or thin spaces. Various third-party
workaround utilities have been developed.[20] Similarly, combining diacritics are handled poorly:
Word 2003 has "improved support", but many diacritics are still misplaced, even if a
precomposed glyph is present in the font. Additionally, as of Word 2002, Word does automatic
font substitution when it finds a character in a document that does not exist in the font specified.
It is impossible to deactivate this, making it very difficult to spot when a glyph used is missing
from the font in use.

In Word 2004 for Macintosh, complex scripts support was inferior even to Word 97, and Word
does not support Apple Advanced Typography features like ligatures or glyph variants. [21]

[edit] Bullets and numbering

Users report that Word's bulleting and numbering system is highly problematic. Particularly
troublesome is Word's system for restarting numbering.[22] However, the Bullets and Numbering
system has been significantly overhauled for Office 2007, which is intended to reduce the
severity of these problems. For example, Office 2007 cannot align tabs for multi-leveled
numbered lists, although this is a basic functionality in Openoffice. Often, items in a list will be
inexplicably separated from their list number by one to three tabs, rendering outlines
unreadable. These problems cannot be resolved even by expert users. Even basic dragging and
dropping words is usually impossible. Bullet and numbering problems in Word include: bullet
characters are often changed and altered, indentation is changed within the same list, and bullet
point or number sequence can belong to an entirely different nests within the same sequence.

[edit] Creating Tables

Users can also create tables in MS Word. Depending on the version, Word can perform simple
calculations. Formulae are supported as well.

[edit] AutoSummarize

AutoSummarize highlights passages or phrases that it considers valuable. The amount of text to
be retained can be specified by the user as a percentage of the current amount of text.

According to Ron Fein of the Word 97 team, Auto Summarize cuts wordy copy to the bone by
counting words and ranking sentences. First, AutoSummarize identifies the most common
words in the document (barring "a" and "the" and the like) and assigns a "score" to each
word--the more frequently a word is used, the higher the score. Then, it "averages" each
sentence by adding the scores of its words and dividing the sum by the number of words in the
sentence--the higher the average, the higher the rank of the sentence. "It's like the ratio of
wheat to chaff," explains Fein. [23]

[edit] AutoCorrect

In Microsoft Office 2003, AutoCorrect items added by the user cease working when text from
sources outside the document is pasted in.

[edit] Versions

Microsoft Word 5.5 for DOS

Versions for MS-DOS include the following:

• 1983 November — Word 1

• 1985 — Word 2
• 1986 — Word 3
 • 1987 — Word 4 aka Microsoft Word 4.0 for the PC
• 1989 — Word 5
• 1991 — Word 5.1
• 1991 — Word 5.5
• 1993 — Word 6.0

Versions for the Macintosh (Mac OS and Mac OS X) include the following:

• 1985 January — Word 1 for the Macintosh

• 1987 — Word 3
• 1989 — Word 4
• 1991 — Word 5
• 1993 — Word 6
• 1998 — Word 98
• 2000 — Word 2001, the last version compatible with Mac OS 9
• 2001 — Word v.X, the first version for Mac OS X only
• 2004 — Word 2004, part of Office 2004 for Mac
• 2008 — Word 2008, part of Office 2008 for Mac

Microsoft Word 1.0 for Windows 3.x

Versions for Microsoft Windows include the following:

• 1989 November — Word for Windows 1.0 for Windows 2.x, code-named Opus
• 1990 March — Word for Windows 1.1 for Windows 3.0, code-named Bill the Cat
• 1990 June — Word for Windows 1.1a for Windows 3.1
• 1991 — Word for Windows 2.0, code-named Spaceman Spiff
• 1993 — Word for Windows 6.0, code-named T3 (renumbered 6 to bring Windows
version numbering in line with that of DOS version, Macintosh version and also
WordPerfect, the main competing word processor at the time; also a 32-bit version for
Windows NT only)
• 1995 — Microsoft Word 95 (version 7.0) - included in Office 95
• 1997 — Microsoft Word 97 (version 8.0) included in Office 97
• 1998 — Microsoft Word 98 (version 8.5) only included in Office 97 Powered By Word
98—only released in Japan and Korea
• 1999 — Microsoft Word 2000 (version 9.0) included in Office 2000
• 2001 — Microsoft Word 2002 (version 10) included in Office XP
• 2003 — Microsoft Word 2003 (officially "Microsoft Office Word 2003") - (ver. 11)
included in Office 2003
 • 2006 — Microsoft Word 2007 (officially "Microsoft Office Word 2007") - (ver. 12)
included in Office 2007; released to businesses on November 30th 2006, released
worldwide to consumers on January 30th 2007

Versions for SCO UNIX include the following:

• Microsoft Word for UNIX Systems Release 5.1

Versions for OS/2 include the following:

• 1992 Microsoft Word for OS/2 version 1.1B

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel (Mac OS X)

 Microsoft Excel:Mac 2008 spreadsheet running on Mac
OS X 10.5.

Developed by Microsoft

Latest 12.1.1 Buid 080522 (2008) / April 14,

release 2008; 108 days ago

OS Mac OS X

Genre Spreadsheet

License Proprietary EULA

Website Microsoft Excel: Mac 2008

Microsoft Excel (full name Microsoft Office Excel) is a proprietary

spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft
Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables
and, except for Excel 2008 for Mac OS X, a macro programming language
called VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). It is overwhelmingly the
dominant spreadsheet application available for these platforms and has been
so since version 5 in 1993[citation needed], and is bundled as part of Microsoft
Office. Excel is one of the most popular microcomputer applications to date.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 History
• 2 Versions
• 3 File formats
o 3.1 Binary
o 3.2 Office Open XML
o 3.3 Export and migration of spreadsheets
• 4 Programming
• 5 Criticism
o 5.1 Accuracy
o 5.2 Excel MOD function error
o 5.3 Date problems
o 5.4 Excel 2007 display error
• 6 See also
• 7 References
 • 8 Further reading

• 9 External links

[edit] History
Microsoft originally marketed a spreadsheet program called Multiplan in
1982, which was very popular on CP/M systems, but on MS-DOS systems it
lost popularity to Lotus 1-2-3. The first version of Excel was released for the
Mac in 1985 and the first Windows version (numbered 2.05 to line-up with
the Mac and bundled with a run-time Windows environment) was released
in November 1987. Lotus was slow to bring 1-2-3 to Windows and by 1988
Excel had started to outsell 1-2-3 and helped Microsoft achieve the position
of leading PC software developer. This accomplishment, dethroning the king
of the software world, solidified Microsoft as a valid competitor and showed
its future of developing GUI software. Microsoft pushed its advantage with
regular new releases, every two years or so. The current version for the
Windows platform is Excel 12, also called Microsoft Office Excel 2007. The
current version for the Mac OS X platform is Microsoft Excel 2008.

Microsoft Excel 2.1 included a runtime version of Windows 2.1

Early in its life Excel became the target of a trademark lawsuit by another
company already selling a software package named "Excel" in the finance
industry. As the result of the dispute Microsoft was required to refer to the
program as "Microsoft Excel" in all of its formal press releases and legal
documents. However, over time this practice has been ignored, and
Microsoft cleared up the issue permanently when they purchased the
trademark of the other program. Microsoft also encouraged the use of the
letters XL as shorthand for the program; while this is no longer common,
the program's icon on Windows still consists of a stylized combination of
the two letters, and the file extension of the default Excel format is .xls.
Excel offers many user interface tweaks over the earliest electronic
spreadsheets; however, the essence remains the same as in the original
spreadsheet, VisiCalc: the cells are organized in rows and columns, and
contain data or formulas with relative or absolute references to other cells.
Excel was the first spreadsheet that allowed the user to define the
appearance of spreadsheets (fonts, character attributes and cell appearance).
It also introduced intelligent cell recomputation, where only cells dependent
on the cell being modified are updated (previous spreadsheet programs
recomputed everything all the time or waited for a specific user command).
Excel has extensive graphing capabilities, and enables users to perform mail
merge.

When first bundled into Microsoft Office in 1993, Microsoft Word and
Microsoft PowerPoint had their GUIs redesigned for consistency with
Excel,[citation needed] the killer app on the PC at the time.

Since 1993, Excel has included Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), a
programming language based on Visual Basic which adds the ability to
automate tasks in Excel and to provide user defined functions (UDF) for use
in worksheets. VBA is a powerful addition to the application which, in later
versions, includes a fully featured integrated development environment
(IDE). Macro recording can produce VBA code replicating user actions, thus
allowing simple automation of regular tasks. VBA allows the creation of
forms and in-worksheet controls to communicate with the user. The
language supports use (but not creation) of ActiveX (COM) DLL's; later
versions add support for class modules allowing the use of basic object-
oriented programming techniques.

The automation functionality provided by VBA has caused Excel to become

a target for macro viruses. This was a serious problem in the corporate world
until antivirus products began to detect these viruses. Microsoft belatedly
took steps to prevent the misuse by adding the ability to disable macros
completely, to enable macros when opening a workbook or to trust all
macros signed using a trusted certificate.

Versions 5.0 to 9.0 of Excel contain various Easter eggs, although since
version 10 Microsoft has taken measures to eliminate such undocumented
features from their products.

[edit] Versions
'Excel 97' (8.0) being run on Windows XP

Office Excel 2003

Excel 2003 icon

Versions for Microsoft Windows include:

• 1987 Excel 2.0 for Windows

• 1990 Excel 3.0
• 1992 Excel 4.0
• 1993 Excel 5.0 (Office 4.2 & 4.3, also a 32-bit version for Windows
NT only on the PowerPc, DEC Alpha, and MIPS)
• 1995 Excel for Windows 95 (version 7.0) - included in Office 95
• 1997 Excel 97 - included in Office 97 (x86 and also a DEC Alpha
version)
• 1999 Excel 2000 (version 9.0) included in Office 2000
• 2001 Excel 2002 (version 10) included in Office XP
• 2003 Excel 2003 (version 11) included in Office 2003
• 2007 Excel 2007 (version 12) included in Office 2007
• Notice: There is no Excel 1.0, in order to avoid confusion with Apple
versions.
• Notice: There is no Excel 6.0, because the Windows 95 version was
launched with Word 7. All the Office 95 & Office 4.X products have
OLE 2 capacity - moving data automatically from various programs
- and Excel 7 should show that it was contemporary with Word 7.

Versions for the Apple Macintosh include:

• 1985 Excel 1.0

• 1988 Excel 1.5
• 1989 Excel 2.2
• 1990 Excel 3.0
• 1992 Excel 4.0
• 1993 Excel 5.0 (Office 4.X -- Motorola 68000 version and first
PowerPC version)
• 1998 Excel 8.0 (Office '98)
• 2000 Excel 9.0 (Office 2001)
• 2001 Excel 10.0 (Office v. X)
• 2004 Excel 11.0 (part of Office 2004 for Mac)
• 2008 Excel 12.0 (part of Office 2008 for Mac)
Versions for OS/2 include:

• 1989 Excel 2.2

• 1990 Excel 2.3
• 1991 Excel 3.0

Versions of Excel up to 7.0 were limited to data sets containing up to 16K

(2^14) rows. Versions 8.0 through 11.0 could handle 64K (2^16) rows and
256 columns (2^8 as label 'IV'). Version 12.0 can handle 1M
(2^20=1048576) rows, and 16384 (2^14 as label 'XFD') columns.[1]

[edit] File formats

Excel Spreadsheet

Filename extension .xls

Internet media type application/vnd.ms-excel

Uniform Type com.microsoft.excel.xls[2]

Identifier

Developed by Microsoft

Type of format Spreadsheet

Microsoft Excel up until 2007 version used a proprietary binary file format
called Binary Interchange File Format (BIFF) as its primary format.[3] Excel
2007 uses Office Open XML as its primary file format, an XML-based
container similar in design to XML-based format called "XML Spreadsheet"
("XMLSS"), first introduced in Excel 2002.[4] The latter format is not able to
encode VBA macros.

Although supporting and encouraging the use of new XML-based formats as

replacements, Excel 2007 is still backwards compatible with the traditional,
binary, formats. In addition, most versions of Microsoft Excel are able to
read CSV, DBF, SYLK, DIF, and other legacy formats.

[edit] Binary
The binary format specification has been available from Microsoft on
request but since February 2008 the .XLS format specification can be freely
downloaded and implemented under the Open Specification Promise patent
licensing. [5]

[edit] Office Open XML

Main article: Office Open XML

Microsoft Excel 2007, along with the other products in the Microsoft Office
2007 suite, introduces a host of new file formats. These are part of the
Office Open XML (OOXML) specification.

The new Excel 2007 formats are:

New Excel 2007 formats

Format Extension Annotations

The default Excel 2007 workbook format. In

reality a ZIP compressed archive with a directory
Excel structure of XML text documents. Functions as the
.xlsx
Workbook primary replacement for the former binary .xls
format, although it does not support Excel macros
for security reasons.

Excel Macro-
enabled .xlsm As Excel Workbook, but with macro support.
Workbook

As Excel Macro-enabled Workbook, but storing

information in binary form rather than XML
Excel Binary documents for opening and saving documents
.xlsb
Workbook more quickly and efficiently. Intended especially
for very large documents with tens of thousands of
rows, and/or several hundreds of columns.

Excel Macro- .xltm A template document that forms a basis for actual
enabled workbooks, with macro support. The replacement
Template for the old .xlt format.

Excel add-in to add extra functionality and tools.

Excel Add-in .xlam
Inherent macro support due to the file purpose.

[edit] Export and migration of spreadsheets

APIs are also provided to open excel spreadsheets in a variety of other

applications and environments other than Microsoft Excel. These include
opening excel documents on the web using either ActiveX controls, or
plugins like the Adobe Flash Player. The Apache POI opensource project
provides Java libraries for reading and writing excel spreadsheet files.
Attempts have also been made to be able to copy excel spreadsheets to web
applications using comma-separated values.

[edit] Programming
A valuable aspect of Excel is the ability to write code using the
programming language Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). This code is
written using an editor viewed separately from the spreadsheet.
Manipulation of the spreadsheet entries is controlled using objects [1]. With
this code any function or subroutine that can be set up in a Basic- or Fortran-
like language can be run using input taken from the spreadsheet proper, and
the results of the code are instantaneously written to the spreadsheet or
displayed on charts (graphs). The spreadsheet becomes an interface or
window to the code, enabling easy interaction with the code and what it
calculates.

[edit] Criticism
Criticisms of spreadsheets in general also apply to Excel. See Spreadsheet
shortcomings. Criticisms specific to Excel include accuracy, date problems
and the Excel 2007 display error.

[edit] Accuracy

Due to Excel's foundation on floating point calculations, the statistical

accuracy of Excel has been criticized,[6][7][8][9] as lacking certain statistical
tools.

[edit] Excel MOD function error

Excel has issues with modulo operations. If a result is too large, Excel will
return the incorrect answer of #NUM! error.[10][11]

[edit] Date problems

Excel incorrectly assumes that 1900 was a leap year.[12][13] The bug
originated from Lotus 1-2-3, and was purposely implemented in Excel for
the purpose of backward compatibility.[14] This legacy has later been carried
over into Office Open XML file format. Excel also supports the second date
format based on year 1904 epoch.

[edit] Excel 2007 display error

Screen shot of Microsoft Excel 2007 showing the 65,535 display error

On September 22, 2007 it was reported[15] that Excel 2007 will show
incorrect results in certain situations. Specifically, for some pairs of numbers
with a product of 65,535 (such as 850 and 77.1), Excel will display their
product as 100,000. This occurs with about 14.5% of such pairs.[16] In
addition, if one is added to this result, Excel will display 100,001. However,
if one is subtracted from the original product, the correct result of 65,534 is
displayed. (Also if it is multiplied or divided by 2, the correct answers
131,070 and 32,767.5 are displayed, respectively.)

Microsoft has reported on the Microsoft Excel Blog[17] that the problem
exists in the display of six specific floating point values between
65534.99999999995 and 65,535, and six values between
65535.99999999995 and 65,536 (not including the integers). Any
calculation that results in one of these twelve values will be displayed
incorrectly. The actual value stored and passed to other cells is correct, only
the displayed value is wrong. The error was introduced with changes made
to the Excel display logic for the 2007 version, and does not exist in
previous versions. On October 9, 2007, Microsoft released a fix to the
public.[18] This issue is also corrected with Service Pack 1.

Chris Lomont presented a detailed explanation of the bug, how it was likely
caused by changing 16-bit formatting code to 32-bit code, why it only
affects 12 values and then only while formatting, and how the hotfix
corrects the bug.[19]

Microsoft PowerPoint

"Power point" redirects here. For other uses, see Power point
(disambiguation).

Microsoft PowerPoint (Mac OS X)

Microsoft PowerPoint:Mac 2008 running on Mac OS X

10.5.
 Developed by Microsoft

Latest release 12.1.1 Build 080522 (2008) / January

15, 2008

OS Mac OS X

Genre Presentation

License Proprietary

Website Microsoft PowerPoint: Mac 2008

Microsoft PowerPoint is a proprietary presentation program developed by

Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office system, and runs on Microsoft
Windows and the Mac OS computer operating systems. The Windows
version can run in Linux operating system, under the Wine compatibility
layer.

PowerPoint is widely used by business people, educators, students, and

trainers and is among the most prevalent forms of persuasion technology.
Beginning with Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft revised the branding to
emphasize PowerPoint's place within the office suite, calling it Microsoft
Office PowerPoint instead of just Microsoft PowerPoint. The current
versions are Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 for Windows and 2008 for
Mac. As a part of the Microsoft Office suite, PowerPoint has become the
world's most widely used presentation program.[citation needed]

Contents
[hide]

• 1 History
• 2 Operation
• 3 Compatibility
• 4 Cultural effects
• 5 Versions
• 6 File formats
• 7 See also
• 8 References

• 9 External links
 [edit] History
Microsoft Office PowerPoint was originally developed by Bob Gaskin and
software developer Dennis Austin under the name Presenter for
Forethought.[1]

Forethought released PowerPoint 1.0 for the Apple Macintosh in April 1987.
It ran in black and white, generating text-and-graphics pages for overhead
transparencies. A new full-color version of PowerPoint shipped a year later
after the first color Macintosh came to market.

Microsoft Corporation purchased Forethought and its PowerPoint software

product for $14 million on July 31, 1987.[2] In 1990 the first Windows
versions were produced for Windows 3.0. Since 1990, PowerPoint has been
included in Microsoft Office suite of applications -- except for the Basic
Editions of the suite.

The 2002 version, part of the Microsoft Office XP suite and also available as
a stand-alone product, provided features such as comparing and merging
changes in presentations, the ability to define animation paths for individual
shapes, pyramid/radial/target and Venn diagrams, multiple slide masters, a
"task pane" to view and select text and objects on the clipboard, password
protection for presentations, automatic "photo album" generation, and the
use of "smart tags" allowing people to quickly select the format of text
copied into the presentation.

Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 did not differ much from the 2002/XP
version. It enhanced collaboration between co-workers and featured
"Package for CD", which makes it easy to burn presentations with
multimedia content and the viewer on CD-ROM for distribution. It also
improved support for graphics and multimedia.

The current version, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, released in

November 2006, brought major changes of the user interface and enhanced
graphic capabilities.[3]

[edit] Operation
PowerPoint presentations consist a number of individual pages or "slides".
The "slide" analogy is a reference to the slide projector, a device that has
become somewhat obsolete due to the use of PowerPoint and other
presentation software.
Slides may contain text, graphics, movies, and other objects, which may be
arranged freely on the slide. PowerPoint, however, facilitates the use of a
consistent style in a presentation using a template or "Slide Master".

The presentation can be printed or displayed live on a computer and

navigated through at the command of the presenter. For larger audiences the
computer display is often projected using a video projector. Slides can also
form the basis of webcasts.

PowerPoint provides three types of movements:

1. Entrance, emphasis, and exit of elements on a slide itself are

controlled by what PowerPoint calls Custom Animations
2. Transitions, on the other hand are movements between slides. These
can be animated in a variety of ways
3. Custom animation can be used to create small story boards by
animating pictures to enter, exit or move

With callouts, speech bubbles with edited text can be sent on and off to
create speech. The overall design of a presentation can be controlled with a
master slide; and the overall structure, extending to the text on each slide,
can be edited using a primitive outliner.

Presentations can be saved and run in any of the file formats: the default
.ppt (presentation), .pps (PowerPoint Show) or .pot (template). In
PowerPoint 2007 and Mac OS X 2008 versions, the XML-based file formats
.pptx, .ppsx and .potx have been introduced, along with the macro-enabled
file formats .pptm, .potm, .ppsm.

Office PowerPoint 2003

Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 running under Windows 2000

The about box for PowerPoint 1.0, with an empty document in the
background.

[edit] Compatibility
As Microsoft Office files are often sent from one computer user to another,
arguably the most important feature of any presentation software—such as
Apple's Keynote, or OpenOffice.org Impress—has become the ability to
open Microsoft Office PowerPoint files.[citation needed] However, because of
PowerPoint's ability to embed content from other applications through OLE,
some kinds of presentations become highly tied to the Windows platform,
meaning that even PowerPoint on Mac OS X cannot always successfully
open its own files originating in the Windows version.

[edit] Cultural effects

Supporters and critics generally agree[4][5][6] that the ease of use of
presentation software can save a lot of time for people who otherwise would
have used other types of visual aid—hand-drawn or mechanically typeset
slides, blackboards or whiteboards, or overhead projections. Ease of use also
encourages those who otherwise would not have used visual aids, or would
not have given a presentation at all, to make presentations. As PowerPoint's
style, animation, and multimedia abilities have become more sophisticated,
and as the application has generally made it easier to produce presentations
(even to the point of having an "AutoContent Wizard" suggesting a structure
for a presentation), the difference in needs and desires of presenters and
audiences has become more noticeable.
[edit] Versions
Versions for the Mac OS include:

• 1987 PowerPoint 1.0 for Mac OS classic

• 1988 PowerPoint 2.0 for Mac OS classic
• 1992 PowerPoint 3.0 for Mac OS classic
• 1994 PowerPoint 4.0 for Mac OS classic
• 1998 PowerPoint 98 (8.0) for Mac OS classic (Office 1998 for Mac)
• 2000 PowerPoint 2001 (9.0) for Mac OS X (Office 2001 for Mac)
• 2002 PowerPoint v. X (10.0) for Mac OS X (Office:Mac v. X)
• 2004 PowerPoint 2004 (11.0) for Mac OS X (Office:Mac 2004)
• 2008 PowerPoint 2008 (12.0) for Mac OS X Microsoft Office 2008
for Mac

Note: There is no PowerPoint 5.0, 6.0 or 7.0 for Mac. There is no version
5.0 or 6.0 because the Windows 95 version was launched with Word 7. All of
the Office 95 products have OLE 2 capacity - moving data automatically
from various programs - and PowerPoint 7 shows that it was contemporary
with Word 7. There was no version 7.0 made for Mac to coincide with either
version 7.0 for Windows or PowerPoint 97.[7].[8].

Microsoft PowerPoint 4.0 - 2007 Icons (Windows versions)

Versions for Microsoft Windows include:

• 1990 PowerPoint 2.0 for Windows 3.0

• 1992 PowerPoint 3.0 for Windows 3.1
• 1993 PowerPoint 4.0 (Office 4.x)
• 1995 PowerPoint for Windows 95 (version 7.0) — (Office 95)
• 1997 PowerPoint 97 — (Office '97)
• 1999 PowerPoint 2000 (version 9.0) — (Office 2000)
• 2001 PowerPoint 2002 (version 10) — (Office XP)
• 2003 PowerPoint 2003 (version 11) — (Office 2003)
• 2006-2007 PowerPoint 2007 (version 12) — (Office 2007)
Note: There is no PowerPoint version 5.0 or 6.0, because the Windows 95
version was launched with Word 7.0. All Office 95 products have OLE 2
capacity - moving data automatically from various programs - and
PowerPoint 7.0 shows that it was contemporary with Word 7.0.

[edit] File formats

PowerPoint Presentation

Filename extension .ppt

Internet media type application/vnd.ms-

powerpoint

Uniform Type com.microsoft.powerpoint.ppt[9]

Identifier

Developed by Microsoft

Type of format Presentation

The binary format specification has been available from Microsoft on

request but since February 2008 the .ppt format specification can be freely
downloaded and implemented under the Microsoft Open Specification
Promise patent licensing.[10]

In Microsoft Office 2007 the binary file formats were replaced as the default
format by the new XML based Office Open XML formats, which are
published as an open standard.

Microsoft Access
 Microsoft Office Access

Office Access 2007 running on Microsoft Windows

Vista.

Developed by Microsoft

Latest release 12.0.6211.1000 (2007 SP1) / December

11, 2007

OS Microsoft Windows

Genre RDBMS

License Proprietary EULA

Website Microsoft Office Access Homepage

Microsoft Office Access, previously known as Microsoft Access, is a

relational database management system from Microsoft that combines the
relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and
software development tools. It is a member of the 2007 Microsoft Office
system.

Access can use data stored in Access/Jet, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, or
any ODBC-compliant data container (including MySQL and PostgreSQL).
Skilled software developers and data architects use it to develop application
software. Relatively unskilled programmers and non-programmer "power
users" can use it to build simple applications. It supports some object-
oriented techniques but falls short of being a fully object-oriented
development tool.

Access was also the name of a communications program from Microsoft,

meant to compete with ProComm and other programs. This proved a failure
and was dropped.[1] Years later Microsoft reused the name for its database
software.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 History
• 2 Uses
• 3 Features
• 4 Development
• 5 Protection
• 6 File extensions
• 7 Versions
• 8 Competing software
• 9 External links
o 9.1 Database protection

• 10 References

[edit] History

Access 1.1 manual cover

Access version 1.0 was released in November 1992, followed in May of
1993 by an Access 1.1 release to improve compatibility with other Microsoft
products.

Microsoft specified the minimum operating system for Version 2.0 as

Microsoft Windows v3.0 with 4 MB of RAM. 6 MB RAM was
recommended along with a minimum of 8 MB of available hard disk space
(14 MB hard disk space recommended). The product was shipped on seven
1.44 MB diskettes. The manual shows a 1993 copyright date.

The software worked well with very large records sets but testing showed
some circumstances caused data corruption. For example, file sizes over 700
MB were problematic (note that most hard disks were smaller than 700 MB
at the time this was in wide use). The Getting Started manual warns about a
number of circumstances where obsolete device drivers or incorrect
configurations can cause data loss.

Access's initial codename was Cirrus; the forms engine was called Ruby.
This was before Visual Basic - Bill Gates saw the prototypes and decided
that the BASIC language component should be co-developed as a separate
expandable application, a project called Thunder. The two projects were
developed separately as the underlying forms engines were incompatible
with each other; however, these were merged together again after VBA.

[edit] Uses
Access is used by small businesses, within departments of large
corporations, and by hobby programmers to create ad hoc customized
desktop systems for handling the creation and manipulation of data. Access
can be used as a database for basic web based applications hosted on
Microsoft's Internet Information Services and utilizing Microsoft Active
Server Pages ASP.

Some professional application developers use Access for rapid application

development, especially for the creation of prototypes and standalone
applications that serve as tools for on-the-road salesmen. Access does not
scale well if data access is via a network, so applications that are used by
more than a handful of people tend to rely on Client-Server based
solutions.[citation needed] However, an Access "front end" (the forms, reports,
queries and VB code) can be used against a host of database backends,
including JET (file-based database engine, used in Access by default),
Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and any other ODBC-compliant product.

[edit] Features
One of the benefits of Access from a programmer's perspective is its relative
compatibility with SQL (structured query language) —queries may be
viewed and edited as SQL statements, and SQL statements can be used
directly in Macros and VBA Modules to manipulate Access tables. Users
may mix and use both VBA and "Macros" for programming forms and logic
and offers object-oriented possibilities.

MSDE (Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine) 2000, a mini-version of

Microsoft SQL Server 2000, is included with the developer edition of Office
XP and may be used with Access as an alternative to the Jet Database
Engine.

Unlike a server-based RDBMS such as SQL Server, Access does not

implement database triggers or stored procedures. However Access provides
a rich programming environment through its event-driven forms and reports
which utilize VBA. Starting in Access 2000 (Jet 4.0), there is a new syntax
for creating queries with parameters, in a way that looks like creating stored
procedures, but these procedures are still limited to one statement per
procedure.[2] Microsoft Access does allow forms to contain code that is
triggered as changes are made to the underlying table (as long as the
modifications are done only with that form), and it is common to use pass-
through queries and other techniques in Access to run stored procedures in
RDBMSs that support these.

In ADP files (supported in Access 2000 and later), the database-related

features are entirely different, because this type of file connects to a MSDE
or Microsoft SQL Server, instead of using the Jet Engine. Thus, it supports
the creation of nearly all objects in the underlying server (tables with
constraints and triggers, views, stored procedures and UDF-s). However,
only forms, reports, macros and modules are stored in the ADP file (the
other objects are stored in the back-end database).

[edit] Development
Access allows relatively quick development because of very good GUI
design tools, and high level integration of GUI design and data objects. All
database tables, queries, forms, and reports are stored in the database. For
query development, Access utilizes the Query Design Grid, a graphical user
interface that allows users to create queries without knowledge of the SQL
programming language. In the Query Design Grid, users can "show" the
source tables of the query and select the fields they want returned by
clicking and dragging them into the grid. Joins can be created by clicking
and dragging fields in tables to fields in other tables. Access allows users to
view and manipulate the SQL code if desired.
The programming language available in Access is, as in other products of
the Microsoft Office suite, Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications. Two
database access libraries of COM components are provided: the legacy Data
Access Objects (DAO), which was superseded for a time (but still
accessible) by ActiveX Data Objects (ADO); however (DAO) has been
reintroduced in the latest version, Microsoft Access 2007.

Many developers who use Access use the Leszynski naming convention,
though this is not universal; it is a programming convention, not a DBMS-
enforced rule.[3] Except in VBA, it is also made redundant by the fact that
Access categorises each object automatically and always shows the object
type, by prefixing Table: or Query: before the object name when referencing
a list of different database objects.

Microsoft Access can be applied to small projects (the Access 97 speed

characterization was done for 32 users)[4]but scales poorly to larger projects
with more than several 100MB of data or many users because of the way
indexing and locking are handled. As a Microsoft Access database can be
cached locally when used on network, processing speed may be
substantially better when there is only a single user. Because of the effect of
packet latency on the record locking system, Access databases are
effectively too slow to be used on a Virtual Private Network or a Wide Area
Network. Access includes an Upsizing Wizard that allows users to upsize
their database to Microsoft SQL Server if they want to move to an ODBC
client-server database.

One recommended technique is to migrate to SQL Server and utilize Access

Data Projects. This allows stored procedures, views, and constraints using
standard SQL. Additionally this full client-server design significantly
reduces maintenance and availability problems.

Access 2003 icon

Access allows no relative paths when linking, so the development

environment should have the same path as the production environment
(though it is possible to write a "dynamic-linker" routine in VBA). This
technique also allows the developer to divide the application among
different files.
[edit] Protection
If the database design needs to be secured to prevent from changes, Access
databases can be locked/protected (and the source code compiled) by
converting the database to an .MDE file. All changes to the database
structure (tables, forms, macros, etc.) need to be made to the original MDB
and then reconverted to MDE.

Some tools are available for unlocking and 'decompiling', although certain
elements including original VBA comments and formatting are normally
irretrievable.

[edit] File extensions

Microsoft Access saves information under the following file formats:

File format Extension

Access Project .adp
Access Blank Project Template .adn
Access Database (2007) .accdb
Access Database (2003 and earlier) .mdb
Access Database, used for addins (2,95,97), previously used
.mda
for workgroups (2).
Access Workgroup, database for user-level security. .mdw
Access (SQL Server) detached database (2000) .mdf
Protected Access Database, with compiled VBA (2003 and
.mde
earlier)
Protected Access Database, with compiled VBA (2007) .accde
Windows Shortcut: Access Macro .mam
Windows Shortcut: Access Query .maq
Windows Shortcut: Access Report .mar
Windows Shortcut: Access Table .mat
Windows Shortcut: Access Form .maf
[edit] Versions

Version
Date Version Supported OS Office suite version
number

1
Access 1.1 1 Windows 3.1x
992

1
Access 2.0 2.0 Windows 3.1x Office 4.3 Pro
993

1 Access for
7.0 Windows 95 Office 95 Professional
995 Windows 95

1 Windows 9x, Office 97 Professional and

Access 97 8.0
997 NT 3.5/4.0 Developer

1 Windows 9x, Office 2000 Professional,

Access 2000 9.0
999 NT 4.0, 2000 Premium and Developer

2 Windows 98, Office XP Professional and

Access 2002 10
001 Me, 2000, XP Developer

2 Windows 2000, Office 2003 Professional

Access 2003 11
003 XP and Professional Enterprise

Microsoft Office 2007 Professional,

2 Windows XP
Office Access 12 Professional Plus, Ultimate
007 SP2, Vista
2007 and Enterprise

There are no Access versions between 2.0 to 7.0 because the Windows 95
version was launched with Word 7. All of the Office 95 products have OLE 2
capabilities, and Access 7 shows that it was compatible with Word 7.