There was a time when most folk weren’t on Google Docs or Phrase. There was a time when each grade schooler thought one of the best ways to make their essays pop was with garish Phrase Artwork. There was a time when Microsoft Phrase wasn’t turning into just another AI playground for Microsoft’s endless campaign to stick a generative chatbot in every one of its apps.
You see, two days in the past Microsoft Word turned 40 years previous. This system got here to life on Oct. 25, 1983, dubbed “Multi-Device Phrase” on Xeni techniques and afterward MS-DOS and Macintosh. Hell, Microsoft even managed to get Phrase on the Atari-ST. This was again when it wanted to compete in opposition to different textual content processing giants like WordStar and WordPerfect. Now it sits comfortably within the Microsoft 365 suite of productiveness instruments, having managed to outlast its younger brother WordPad, which first noticed use in Home windows 95 near 30 years in the past.
Phrase needed to evolve to beat the competitors, although Phrase 4.0 lastly introduced this system onto the newfangled Home windows working system in 1989. Consider it or not, Phrase was a promoting level for the corporate’s OS. Microsoft launched model 5.5 of Phrase for DOS which used an interface similar to the Home windows model. Then the year 2000 problem reared its head, which required Microsoft to easily launch 5.5 on DOS free of charge.
By the point Microsoft Phrase 95 on Home windows 95 rolled round and introduced customers the Activity Pane, we began to get a way of what route Microsoft would take its textual content suite. By 1997, Microsoft Phrase on Home windows had taken greater than 90% of the phrase processing market share. Later variations have compelled integration with Microsoft’s cloud service OneDrive, and it was from there it snowballed into the present 365 ecosystem that tries to emphasise interoperability in Microsoft’s personal walled backyard.
If any of that is making you’re feeling previous, simply do not forget that Microsoft Phrase—because it stands now—has strayed a good deal away from its roots as a humble WYSIWYG software for creating textual content paperwork. For these simply seeking to make or format textual content paperwork, Phrase can really feel fairly bloated. There have been days when Phrase didn’t require an web connection and a Microsoft account to autosave.
There’s a good bit of debate about which model of Phrase was greatest, whether or not it was the 2013 model which included Learn Mode and superior picture modifying, and even earlier just like the 2007 model with instruments grouped in tabs, or the 2003 model that gave us what is actually the identical primary structure as what we’ve right this moment. Some even declare that 1993’s Phrase 6 is the prime model of the software program, with out all of the pointless widgets and tabs to muddle the display screen.
Even with the addition of long-awaited darkish mode in 2021, it’s arduous to recommend Phrase first when there are many free packages out there on-line. This text is being written on Google Docs, and there’s no actual must boot up Microsoft’s personal Phrase program. However if you happen to’re wanting to return in time, the Laptop Historical past Museum hosts the source code for Microsoft Phrase for Home windows 1.1.
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