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It was not initially popular, since its user interface was different from the leading word processor at the time, WordStar. Advertisements depicted the Microsoft Mouse and described Word as a WYSIWYG, windowed word processor with the ability to undo and display bold, italic, and underlined text, although it could not render fonts. Unlike most MS-DOS programs at the time, Microsoft Word was designed to be used with a mouse. That year Microsoft demonstrated Word running on Windows.
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Free demonstration copies of the application were bundled with the November 1983 issue of PC World, making it the first to be distributed on-disk with a magazine. Its name was soon simplified to Microsoft Word. Microsoft announced Multi-Tool Word for Xenix and MS-DOS in 1983. Simonyi started work on a word processor called Multi-Tool Word and soon hired Richard Brodie, a former Xerox intern, who became the primary software engineer.
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In 1981, Microsoft hired Charles Simonyi, the primary developer of Bravo, the first GUI word processor, which was developed at Xerox PARC. Main article: History of Microsoft Word Origins Using Wine, versions of Microsoft Word before 2013 can be run on Linux.Ĭommercial versions of Word are licensed as a standalone product or as a component of Microsoft Office suite of software, which can be purchased either with a perpetual license or as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including: IBM PCs running DOS (1983), Apple Macintosh running the Classic Mac OS (1985), AT&T UNIX PC (1985), Atari ST (1988), OS/2 (1989), Microsoft Windows (1989), SCO Unix (1990), macOS (2001), Web browsers (2010), iOS (2014) and Android (2015). It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Microsoft Word is a word processor developed by Microsoft.
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