MS Office Curse Details At a Glance Overview

This article is about the original perpetually-licenced suite created by Microsoft. For the current subscription-licenced suite colloquially known as “Microsoft Office”, see Microsoft 365.

Microsoft Office, MS Office, or simply Office, is an office suite and family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. The first version of the Office suite, announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988 at COMDEX, contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint — all three of which remain core products in Office — and over time Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, Object Linking and Embedding data integration and Visual Basic for Applications scripting language. Microsoft also positions Office as a development platform for line-of-business software under the Office Business Applications brand.

The suite currently includes a word processor (Word), a spreadsheet program (Excel), a presentation program (PowerPoint), a notetaking program (OneNote), an email client (Outlook) and a file-hosting service client (OneDrive). The Windows version includes a database management system (Access). Office is produced in several versions targeted towards different end-users and computing environments. The original, and most widely used version, is the desktop version, available for PCs running the Windows and macOS operating systems, and sold at retail or under volume licensing. Microsoft also maintains mobile apps for Android and iOS, as well as Office on the web, a version of the software that runs within a web browser, which are offered freely.

Since Office 2013, Microsoft has promoted Office 365 as the primary means of obtaining Microsoft Office: it allows the use of the software and other services on a subscription business model, and users receive feature updates to the software for the lifetime of the subscription, including new features and cloud computing integration that are not necessarily included in the “on-premises” releases of Office sold under conventional license terms. In 2017, revenue from Office 365 overtook conventional license sales. Microsoft also rebranded most of their standard Office 365 editions as “Microsoft 365” to reflect their inclusion of features and services beyond the core Microsoft Office suite. Although Microsoft announced that it was to phase out the Microsoft Office brand in favor of Microsoft 365 by 2023, with the name continuing only for legacy product offerings,^[20][21] later that year it reversed this decision and announced Office 2024, which they released in September 2024.^[22][23][24]

Components

See also: List of Microsoft Office programs

Core apps and services

• Microsoft Word is a word processor included in Microsoft Office and some editions of the now-discontinued Microsoft Works. The first version of Word, released in the autumn of 1983, was for the MS-DOS operating system and introduced the computer mouse to more users. Word 1.0 could be purchased with a bundled mouse, though none was required. Following the precedents of LisaWrite and MacWrite, Word for Macintosh attempted to add closer WYSIWYG features into its package. Word for Mac was released in 1985. Word for Mac was the first graphical version of Microsoft Word. Initially, it implemented the proprietary .doc format as its primary format. Word 2007, however, deprecated this format in favor of Office Open XML, which was later standardized by Ecma International as an open format. Support for Portable Document Format (PDF) and OpenDocument (ODF) was first introduced in Word for Windows with Service Pack 2 for Word 2007.^[25]
• Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet editor that originally competed with the dominant Lotus 1-2-3 and eventually outsold it. Microsoft released the first version of Excel for the Mac OS in 1985 and the first Windows version (numbered 2.05 to line up with the Mac) in November 1987.
• Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program used to create slideshows composed of text, graphics, and other objects, which can be displayed on-screen and shown by the presenter or printed out on transparencies or slides.
• Microsoft OneNote is a notetaking program that gathers handwritten or typed notes, drawings, screen clippings and audio commentaries. Notes can be shared with other OneNote users over the Internet or a network. OneNote was initially introduced as a standalone app that was not included in any Microsoft Office 2003 edition. However, OneNote eventually became a core component of Microsoft Office; with the release of Microsoft Office 2013, OneNote was included in all Microsoft Office offerings. OneNote is also available as a web app on Office on the web, a freemium (and later freeware) Windows desktop app, a mobile app for Windows Phone, iOS, Android, and Symbian, and a Metro-style app for Windows 8 or later.
• Microsoft Outlook (not to be confused with Outlook Express, Outlook.com or Outlook on the web) is a personal information manager that replaces Windows Messaging, Microsoft Mail, and Schedule+ starting in Office 97; it includes an e-mail client, calendar, task manager and address book. On the Mac OS, Microsoft offered several versions of Outlook in the late 1990s, but only for use with Microsoft Exchange Server. In Office 2001, it introduced an alternative application with a slightly different feature set called Microsoft Entourage. It reintroduced Outlook in Office 2011, replacing Entourage.^[26]
• Microsoft OneDrive is a file hosting service that allows users to sync files and later access them from a web browser or mobile device.
• Microsoft Teams is a platform that combines workplace chat, meetings, notes, and attachments.

Windows-only apps

• Microsoft Publisher is a desktop publishing app for Windows mostly used for designing brochures, labels, calendars, greeting cards, business cards, newsletters, web sites, and postcards. Publisher will be discontinued in 2026.^[27]
• Microsoft Access is a database management system for Windows that combines the relational Access Database Engine (formerly Jet Database Engine) with a graphical user interface and software development tools. Microsoft Access stores data in its own format based on the Access Database Engine. It can also import or link directly to data stored in other applications and databases.^[28]
• Microsoft Project is a project management app for Windows to keep track of events and to create network charts and Gantt charts, not bundled in any Office suite.
• Microsoft Visio is a diagram and flowcharting app for Windows not bundled in any Office suite.

Mobile-only apps

• Office Lens is an image scanner optimized for mobile devices. It captures the document (e.g. business card, paper, whiteboard) via the camera and then straightens the document portion of the image. The result can be exported to Word, OneNote, PowerPoint or Outlook, or saved in OneDrive, sent via Mail or placed in Photo Library.
• Office Mobile is a unified Office mobile app for Android and iOS, which combines Word, Excel, and PowerPoint into a single app and introduces new capabilities as making quick notes, signing PDFs, scanning QR codes, and transferring files.^[29]
• Office Remote is an application that turns the mobile device into a remote control for desktop versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Server applications

• Microsoft SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that integrates with Microsoft Office. Launched in 2001, SharePoint is primarily sold as a document management and storage system, but the product is highly configurable and usage varies substantially among organizations. SharePoint services include:
  • Excel Services is a spreadsheet editing server similar to Microsoft Excel.
  • InfoPath Forms Services is a form distribution server similar to Microsoft InfoPath.
  • Microsoft Project Server is a project management server similar to Microsoft Project.
  • Microsoft Search Server
• Skype for Business Server is a real-time communications server for instant messaging and video-conferencing.
• Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server.

Web services

• Microsoft Sway is a presentation web app released in October 2014. It also has a native app for iOS and Windows 10.
• Delve is a service that allows Office 365 users to search and manage their emails, meetings, contacts, social networks and documents stored on OneDrive or Sites in Office 365.
• Microsoft Forms is an online survey creator, available for Office 365 Education subscribers.
• Microsoft To Do is a task management service.
• Outlook.com is a free webmail with a user interface similar to Microsoft Outlook.
• Outlook on the web is a webmail client similar to Outlook.com but more comprehensive and available only through Office 365 and Microsoft Exchange Server offerings.
• Microsoft Planner is a planning application available on the Microsoft Office 365 platform.
• Microsoft Stream is a corporate video sharing service for enterprise users with an Office 365 Academic or Enterprise license.
• Microsoft Bookings is an appointment booking application on the Microsoft Office 365 platform.

Office on the web

Office on the web is a free lightweight web version of Microsoft Office and primarily includes three web applications: Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The offering also includes Outlook.com, OneNote and OneDrive which are accessible through a unified app switcher. Users can install the on-premises version of this service, called Office Online Server, in private clouds in conjunction with SharePoint, Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Lync Server.^[31]

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on the web can all natively open, edit, and save Office Open XML files (docx, xlsx, pptx) as well as OpenDocument files (odt, ods, odp). They can also open the older Office file formats (doc, xls, ppt), but will be converted to the newer Open XML formats if the user wishes to edit them online. Other formats cannot be opened in the browser apps, such as CSV in Excel or HTML in Word, nor can Office files that are encrypted with a password be opened. Files with macros can be opened in the browser apps, but the macros cannot be accessed or executed.^[32][33][34] Starting in July 2013, Word can render PDF documents or convert them to Microsoft Word documents, although the formatting of the document may deviate from the original.^[35] Since November 2013, the apps have supported real-time co-authoring and autosaving files.^[36][37]

Office on the web lacks a number of the advanced features present in the full desktop versions of Office, including lacking the programs Access and Publisher entirely. However, users are able to select the command “Open in Desktop App” that brings up the document in the desktop version of Office on their computer or device to utilize the advanced features there.^[38][39]

Supported web browsers include Microsoft [New] Edge, the latest versions of Firefox or Google Chrome, as well as Safari 16 or later.^[40]

The Personal edition of Office on the web is available to the general public free of charge with a Microsoft account through the Office.com website, which superseded SkyDrive (now OneDrive) and Office Live Workspace. Enterprise-managed versions are available through Office 365.^[41] In February 2013, the ability to view and edit files on SkyDrive without signing in was added.^[42] The service can also be installed privately in enterprise environments as a SharePoint app, or through Office Web Apps Server.^[31] Microsoft also offers other web apps in the Office suite, such as the Outlook Web App (formerly Outlook Web Access),^[43] Lync Web App (formerly Office Communicator Web Access),^[44] Project Web App (formerly Project Web Access).^[45] Additionally, Microsoft offers a service under the name of Online Doc Viewer to view Office documents on a website via Office on the web.^[46]

Common features

Most versions of Microsoft Office (including Office 97 and later) use their own widget set and do not exactly match the native operating system. This is most apparent in Microsoft Office XP and 2003, where the standard menus were replaced with a colored, flat-looking, shadowed menu style.

The user interface of a particular version of Microsoft Office often heavily influences a subsequent version of Microsoft Windows. E.g.:-

• The toolbar, colored buttons and the gray-colored 3D look of Office 4.3 were added to Windows 95.
• The ribbon, introduced in Office 2007, has been incorporated into several programs bundled with Windows 7 and later.
• The flat, box-like design of Office 2013 (released in 2012) was replicated in Windows 8‘s new UI revamp.

Users of Microsoft Office may access external data via connection-specifications saved in Office Data Connection (.odc) files.^[47]

Office, on all platforms, supports editing both server files (in real time) and offline files (manually saved) in recent years. The support for editing server files (in real time) was originally introduced (in its current form) after the introduction of OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive). But, older versions of Office also have the ability to edit server files (notably Office 2007).

Both Windows and Office used service packs to update software. Office had non-cumulative service releases, which were discontinued after Office 2000 Service Release 1. Now, Windows and Office have shifted to predictable (monthly, semi-annual and annual) release schemes to update software.

Past versions of Office often contained Easter eggs. For example, Excel 97 contained a reasonably functional flight-simulator.

File formats and metadata

Microsoft Office prior to Office 2007 used proprietary file formats based on the OLE Compound File Binary Format.^[48] This forced users who share data to adopt the same software platform.^[49] In 2008, Microsoft made the entire documentation for the binary Office formats freely available for download and granted any possible patents rights for use or implementations of those binary format for free under the Open Specification Promise.^[50][51] Previously, Microsoft had supplied such documentation freely but only on request.^[52]

Starting with Office 2007, the default file format has been a version of Office Open XML, though different from the one standardized and published by Ecma International and by ISO/IEC. Microsoft has granted patent rights to the formats technology under the Open Specification Promise^[53] and has made available free downloadable converters for previous versions of Microsoft Office including Office 2003, Office XP, Office 2000^[54] and Office 2004 for Mac OS X. Third-party implementations of Office Open XML exist on the Windows platform (LibreOffice, all platforms), macOS platform (iWork ’08, NeoOffice, LibreOffice) and Linux (LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org 3.0). In addition, Office 2010, Service Pack 2 for Office 2007, and Office 2016 for Mac supports the OpenDocument Format (ODF) for opening and saving documents – only the old ODF 1.0 (2006 ISO/IEC standard) is supported, not the 1.2 version (2015 ISO/IEC standard).

Microsoft provides the ability to remove metadata from Office documents. This was in response to highly publicized incidents where sensitive data about a document was leaked via its metadata.^[55] Metadata removal was first available in 2004, when Microsoft released a tool called Remove Hidden Data Add-in for Office 2003/XP for this purpose.^[56] It was directly integrated into Office 2007 in a feature called the Document Inspector.