Word document is a proprietary format developed by
Microsoft for its word processing software in 1983.
It was used in Apple Mac, SCO Unix, OS/2 and Windows.
It was called Multi-Tool Word.
Microsoft has improved Word considerably in later
versions. It also added support for many languages.
Now, Word 2007 can be used with 90 languages:
| Afrikaans | Albanian | Arabic | Armenian | Assamese | Azeri | Basque | Bengali | Bulgarian |
| Burmese | Belarusian | Catalan | Chinese | Croatian | Czech | Danish | Dutch | English |
| Estonian | Faeroese | Farsi | Finnish | French | Galician | Georgian | German | Greek |
| Gujarati | Hebrew | Hindi | Hungarian | Icelandic | Indonesian | Italian | Japanese | Kannada |
| Kashmiri | Kazakh | Khmer | Kirghiz | Konkani | Korean | Lao | Latvian | Lithuanian |
| Macedonian | Malayalam | Malay | Maltese | Manipuri | Marathi | Mongolian | Nepali | Norwegian |
| Oriya | Polish | Portuguese | Punjabi | Romanian | Russian | Sami | Sanskrit | Serbian |
| Sesotho | Sindhi | Slovak | Slovenian | Sorbian | Spanish | Sutu | Swahili | Swedish |
| Tajik | Tamil | Tatar | Telugu | Thai | Tibetan | Tsonga | Tswana | Turkish |
| Turkmen | Ukrainian | Urdu | Uzbek | Venda | Vietnamese | Welsh | Xhosa | Zulu |
GIRDAC PDF to Word Converter Pro
supports 54 user interface languages. This makes it a global product.
The first Word version is released in 1989. Office suite is introduced in 1995.
Since then, Word become a part of Microsoft Office.
|
|---|
| Word Version |
|
Release Year |
Word Name |
Features |
| 1.0 |
|
1989 |
Word for Windows 1.0 |
Used in Windows 2.x
|
| 1.1 |
|
1990 |
Word for Windows 1.1 |
Used in Windows 3.x
|
| 1.2 |
|
1991 |
Word for Windows 2.0 |
Used in Windows 3.x
|
| 6.0 |
|
1993 |
Word for Windows 6.0 |
Used in Windows 3.x
|
| 7.0 |
|
1995 |
Word 95 |
included in Office 95
|
| 8.0 |
|
1997 |
Word 97 |
included in Office 97
|
| 9.0 |
|
2000 |
Word 2000 |
included in Office 2000
|
| 10.0 |
|
2002 |
Word 2002 |
included in Office XP
|
| 11.0 |
|
2003 |
Word 2003 |
included in Office 2003
|
| 12.0 |
|
2007 |
Word 2007 |
included in Office 2007
|
|
Rich Text Format (RTF) is one of the supported file
formats in Word. RTF specification version 1.0 was
first implemented in 1987. It is improved in later
versions. The latest RTF specification version 1.9.1
is released in 2008. It is compatible with Word 2007.
RTF is an 8-bit format. However, it can render the
characters beyond the 8-bit ASCII code. It maintains
document structure with reference table and control
codes. For instance, the word that follows the control
code \b is shown as bold.
PDF is preferred format for cross-platform use and greater
consistency. But PDF files are not easily editable documents.
RTF is a plain text file and easily editable.
Word document in Word 2007 can be saved in 12 formats:
|
|---|
| File Extension |
Description |
| .docx |
supports open xml partially |
| .doc |
compatible with Word 97 to Word 2003 |
| .docm |
enables macros |
| .dotx |
supports Word 2007 template |
| .dot |
supports template compatible with Word 97 to Word 2003 |
| .dotm |
enables macros in template |
| .mhtml |
supports single page web file |
| .html |
supports simple web file and filtered web file |
| .rtf |
supports latest rtf specification |
| .txt |
plain text file |
| ..xml |
supports Word xml |
| .wps |
supports Works 6.0 to Works 9.0 |
|
Word 2007 does not support open xml in total. But the
next version, Word 2010, is expected to support open xml
completely.
Word is not free software. But Word Viewer is free. One
can
download the Word Viewer 2007 by clicking this link.
