Microsoft Word for Mac

In 1983, Microsoft Word for Mac began its life as a multi-tool word for XENIX. Later, it was renamed and ported to MS-DOS in 1985 as Macintosh and in 1989 as Windows.

In 1984, two new programs were introduced for the Mac users:

• MacWrite
• MacPaint

Microsoft Word for Mac was introduced by Apple with the original Macintosh. The first GUI word processor called Bravo was created at Xerox PARC. This is where Word was first designed and the Multi-tool word was released.

The first Word was WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) which could display bold, italic, and underlined text. But, it would not allow different typefaces or sizes. Later, Word for MS-DOS, worked with a mouse. Microsoft also offered the program with this new-fangled input device. There were two breakthroughs using a mouse and WYSIWYG. They are:

• WordStar - the most popular word processing software (at the time)
• WordPerfect - the rising star in the DOS world

A high resolution display was made to be supported by Word for MS-DOS. But even now DOS computers do not have them. Yet this feature made it easier to port to Macintosh. MS Word for Mac was developed shortly thereafter.

Word for Mac

There were actually many versions of Microsoft Word for Mac. They are:

• First version released in 1985
• Word 3.0 released in 1987
• Word 3.0.1
• Word 4.0 in 1989

The second version was called Word 3.0 instead of Word 2.0 in order to match the current version number.

But, since the second version 3.0 included a number of bugs, a few months later, Microsoft released the third version - 3.0.1. In 1989, the same year when version 4.0 was released, Apple spun off its own software. Later in 1994, MacWrite II peaked and Apple discontinued MacWrite Pro. Version 4.0 was the last software that could be run using a two-floppy Mac.

In 1991, version 5.0 reached the market and later it was upgraded to version 5.1 in 1992. These versions worked fine on compact Macs. Version 5.1a was considered to be the best version among all. But, Word 6.0, which was released in 1993, was the worst version for Mac, since it was developed based on Codebase. Its operation was much more similar to Windows software rather than a Macintosh program.

A new numbering scheme was adopted to identify the version by the year of release. This began in 1995 and hence named Word 95. Word 98 was obviously released in 1998. Subsequent versions were called Word 2001, Word v.X, Word 2004 and Word 2008. Word v.X was the first version designed for Mac OS X and Word 2008 is the current version. Word 98 was actually Word’s first version which was compatible with both Windows Word 97 and Mac. It is a decent word processor for Mac.

The latest version of Microsoft Word for Mac includes enormous time saving features. Typing is made easier and without errors as it has auto correction. It is makes finding files a snap. Another important feature is that Microsoft Word for Mac is compatible with earlier versions.

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