Over the following years, Microsoft re-coded the program a number of times so that it could work on different operating systems, including DOS (disk operating system) and Macintosh. Version 2.0 was released in 1985, with added features including spellcheck and word count. Word let users create, save and print text documents, but it wasn't an instant success perhaps because it was competing with the hugely popular WordPerfect and WordStar word processing programs.

This meant that however a document looked on screen was how it would look once printed. Word was a WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you get') program. It was designed for use on computers that ran the UNIX operating system. At this time, Word was called Multi-Tool Word. The two were hired by Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen, in 1981. The first ever version of Microsoft Word - Word 1.0 - was launched in October 1983 and developed by former Xerox programmers, Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie. So, just how did Word come to dominate the market during the last 25 years and become the most-used word processing software in the world? And what does the future hold for the product? Rise to popularity Word can be bought as a standalone product or as a part of Microsoft Office, which also includes programs like Excel and PowerPoint. Its popularity lies in its ease of use, plus the fact that it can be used on different operating systems including Macintosh and of course, Windows. In fact, it’s estimated that Word is running on more than a billion devices worldwide.įirst released in 1983 under a different name, Word celebrated its 25 th birthday in 2018. It is an integral part of the Microsoft Office suite of products and is the most widely-used word processor in the world. Microsoft Word, known also just as ‘Word’ is word processing software and a flagship product of Microsoft.

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