What is Word document?
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	Belarusian	Farsi	Hungarian	Konkani	Marathi	Sami	Swahili	Turkish
Albanian	Catalan	Finnish	Icelandic	Korean	Mongolian	Sanskrit	Swedish	Turkmen
Arabic	Chinese	French	Indonesian	Lao	Nepali	Serbian	Tajik	Ukrainian
Armenian	Croatian	Galician	Italian	Latvian	Norwegian	Sesotho	Tamil	Urdu
Assamese	Czech	Georgian	Japanese	Lithuanian	Oriya	Sindhi	Tatar	Uzbek
Azeri	Danish	German	Kannada	Macedonian	Polish	Slovak	Telugu	Venda
Basque	Dutch	Greek	Kashmiri	Malayalam	Portuguese	Slovenian	Thai	Vietnamese
Bengali	English	Gujarati	Kazakh	Malay	Punjabi	Sorbian	Tibetan	Welsh
Bulgarian	Estonian	Hebrew	Khmer	Maltese	Romanian	Spanish	Tsonga	Xhosa
Burmese	Faeroese	Hindi	Kirghiz	Manipuri	Russian	Sutu	Tswana	Zulu

GIRDAC PDF to Word Converter Pro supports 60 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
14.0		2010	Word 2010	included in Office 2010

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. However, 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. However, the next version, Word 2010, is expected to support open xml completely. Go to: What is PDF?		Word is not free software. But Word Viewer is free. One can download the Word Viewer 2007 by clicking this link. Go to: What is PDF Converter?