The world’s most popular word processing software, Microsoft Word, was released on October 25, 1983 and has subtly but surely influenced the way we write and communicate.
In its early days, Microsoft’s signature software was not called Word, but Multi-Tool Word and was designed for IBM PC computers. In the field of word processing software, there was competition between more than 300 programs.
But in just over a decade, in 1994, the computer giant claimed it had managed to crush its competitors by capturing 90% of the market.
To date, Word, installed on approximately 1.4 billion Windows devices, is the software of choice for 90% of Fortune 500 companies.
Word, not always in the foreground
Spell correction tool, word processing, change tracking… Microsoft software didn’t invent any of this. However, due to the software’s global reach, Word is largely credited with democratizing these features.
However, line breaks, bold and italic fonts, and the use of templates (resume, financial report, letters, etc.) that enabled a kind of standardization of professional documents are Word initiatives.
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Microsoft’s Copilot tool allows users to create a draft from documents such as notes.
Photo: Microsoft
The future is bright for the tool, which will soon include artificial intelligence (AI) functionalities thanks to Copilot, an assistant powered by AI software from OpenAI, the inventor of the ChatGPT conversation robot.
Copilot will allow Word users to write, edit, and summarize text based on text commands. The assistant can also use other documents from its Microsoft 365 suite for this purpose.
Word in a few important dates
- 1983: Introduction of Multi-Tool Word, the first version of Word software
- 1989: Introduction of Word for Windows 1.0
- 1994: Microsoft claims its word processing software has captured 90% of the market
- 1997: First appearance of Clippy, the unpopular trombone assistant
- 2007: Death of Clippy
- 2007: Default font changed to Calibri
- 2016: Added real-time online collaboration features
- 2023: Introducing Copilot, which will add artificial intelligence features to Word
- 2023: Changed default font to Aptos
With information from BBC and The Verge