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Suite of office software From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketing term for an office suite (bundled set of productivity applications), the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Over the years, 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.
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| Developer(s) | Microsoft | ||||||||
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| Initial release | October 1, 1990[1] | ||||||||
| Stable release(s) [±] | |||||||||
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| Preview release(s) [±] | |||||||||
| Written in | C++ (back-end)[6] | ||||||||
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows, macOS | ||||||||
| Successor | Microsoft 365 | ||||||||
| Standard(s) | Office Open XML (ISO/IEC 29500) | ||||||||
| Available in | 102 languages[7] | ||||||||
List of languages
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| Type | Office suite | ||||||||
| License | Trialware, volume licensing or SaaS | ||||||||
| Website | office.com | ||||||||
Microsoft Office for Mobile apps on Windows 10 | |
| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Initial release | April 19, 2000 |
| Stable release | 17.0
/ October 2021 |
| Operating system | Windows 10,[8][9][10][11] Windows 10 Mobile, Windows Phone, iOS, iPadOS, Android,[12] ChromeOS[13] |
| Platform | Smartphones and Tablet computers[12] |
| Type | Productivity software |
| License | Proprietary software:[12] |
| Website | www |
 Microsoft Office 2021 for Mac apps from top left to bottom right: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook | |
| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Initial release | August 1, 1989 |
| Stable release | Microsoft Office 2021
|
| Written in | C++ (back-end), Objective-C (API/UI)[6] |
| Operating system | macOS Classic Mac OS (discontinued) |
| Available in | 16 languages[14] |
List of languages English, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Swedish | |
| Type | Office suite |
| License | Proprietary commercial software (retail, volume licensing, SaaS) |
| Website | www |
It contains a word processor (Word), a spreadsheet program (Excel) and a presentation program (PowerPoint), an email client (Outlook), a database management system (Access), and a desktop publishing app (Publisher).[15]
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. Microsoft also maintains mobile apps for Android and iOS. Office on the web is a version of the software that runs within a web browser.
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.
In October 2022, Microsoft announced that it was to phase out the Microsoft Office brand in favor of "Microsoft 365" by January 2023, the name continuing to be used for legacy product offerings.[16][17] However, Microsoft reversed this stance with the release of an Office 2024 preview build in November 2023.[18][19]
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 Clockwise from top left: Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint in Office on the web as of September 2018[update] | |
Type of site | |
|---|---|
| Owner | Microsoft |
| Created by | Microsoft |
| URL | www |
| Commercial | Freemium |
| Registration | Mandatory for webmail and file sharing; optional for others |
| Launched | June 7, 2010[24] |
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.[25]
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.[26][27][28] 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.[29] Since November 2013, the apps have supported real-time co-authoring and autosaving files.[30][31]
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.[32][33]
Supported web browsers include Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer 11, the latest versions of Firefox or Google Chrome, as well as Safari for OS X 10.8 or later.[34]
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.[35] In February 2013, the ability to view and edit files on SkyDrive without signing in was added.[36] The service can also be installed privately in enterprise environments as a SharePoint app, or through Office Web Apps Server.[25] Microsoft also offers other web apps in the Office suite, such as the Outlook Web App (formerly Outlook Web Access),[37] Lync Web App (formerly Office Communicator Web Access),[38] Project Web App (formerly Project Web Access).[39] Additionally, Microsoft offers a service under the name of Online Doc Viewer to view Office documents on a website via Office on the web.[40]
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.:-
Users of Microsoft Office may access external data via connection-specifications saved in Office Data Connection (.odc) files.[41]
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.
Microsoft Office prior to Office 2007 used proprietary file formats based on the OLE Compound File Binary Format.[42] This forced users who share data to adopt the same software platform.[43] 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.[44][45] Previously, Microsoft had supplied such documentation freely but only on request.[46]
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[47] and has made available free downloadable converters for previous versions of Microsoft Office including Office 2003, Office XP, Office 2000[48] 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.[49] 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.[50] It was directly integrated into Office 2007 in a feature called the Document Inspector.
A major feature of the Office suite is the ability for users and third-party companies to write add-ins (plug-ins) that extend the capabilities of an application by adding custom commands and specialized features. One of the new features is the Office Store.[51] Plugins and other tools can be downloaded by users.[52] Developers can make money by selling their applications in the Office Store. The revenue is divided between the developer and Microsoft where the developer gets 80% of the money.[53] Developers are able to share applications with all Office users.[53]
The app travels with the document, and it is for the developer to decide what the recipient will see when they open it. The recipient will either have the option to download the app from the Office Store for free, start a free trial or be directed to payment.[53] With Office's cloud abilities, IT departments can create a set of apps for their business employees in order to increase their productivity.[54] When employees go to the Office Store, they'll see their company's apps under My Organization. The apps that employees have personally downloaded will appear under My Apps.[53] Developers can use web technologies like HTML5, XML, CSS3, JavaScript, and APIs for building the apps.[55] An application for Office is a webpage that is hosted inside an Office client application. Users can use apps to amplify the functionality of a document, email message, meeting request, or appointment. Apps can run in multiple environments and by multiple clients, including rich Office desktop clients, Office Web Apps, mobile browsers, and also on-premises and in the cloud.[55] The type of add-ins supported differ by Office versions:
Microsoft Office has a security feature that allows users to encrypt Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Skype Business) documents with a user-provided password. The password can contain up to 255 characters and uses AES 128-bit advanced encryption by default.[59] Passwords can also be used to restrict modification of the entire document, worksheet or presentation. Due to lack of document encryption, though, these passwords can be removed using a third-party cracking software.[60]
All versions of Microsoft Office products from Office 2000 to Office 2016 are eligible for ten years of support following their release, during which Microsoft releases security updates for the product version and provides paid technical support. The ten-year period is divided into two five-year phases: The mainstream phase and the extended phase. During the mainstream phase, Microsoft may provide limited complimentary technical support and release non-security updates or change the design of the product. During the extended phase, said services stop.[61] Office 2019 only receives 5 years of mainstream and 2 years of extended support and Office 2021 only gets 5 years of mainstream support.[62]
Microsoft supports Office for the Windows and macOS platforms, as well as mobile versions for Windows Phone, Android and iOS platforms. Beginning with Mac Office 4.2, the macOS and Windows versions of Office share the same file format, and are interoperable. Visual Basic for Applications support was dropped in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac,[63] then reintroduced in Office for Mac 2011.[64]
Microsoft tried in the mid-1990s to port Office to RISC processors such as NEC/MIPS and IBM/PowerPC, but they met problems such as memory access being hampered by data structure alignment requirements. Microsoft Word 97 and Excel 97, however, did ship for the DEC Alpha platform. Difficulties in porting Office may have been a factor in discontinuing Windows NT on non-Intel platforms.[65]
The Microsoft Office applications and suites are sold via retail channels, and volume licensing for larger organizations (also including the "Home Use Program". allowing users at participating organizations to buy low-cost licenses for use on their personal devices as part of their employer's volume license agreement).[66]
In 2010, Microsoft introduced a software as a service platform known as Office 365, to provide cloud-hosted versions of Office's server software, including Exchange e-mail and SharePoint, on a subscription basis (competing in particular with Google Apps).[67][68] Following the release of Office 2013, Microsoft began to offer Office 365 plans for the consumer market, with access to Microsoft Office software on multiple devices with free feature updates over the life of the subscription, as well as other services such as OneDrive storage.[69][70]
Microsoft has since promoted Office 365 as the primary means of purchasing Microsoft Office. Although there are still "on-premises" releases roughly every three years, Microsoft marketing emphasizes that they do not receive new features or access to new cloud-based services as they are released unlike Office 365, as well as other benefits for consumer and business markets.[71][72][73] Office 365 revenue overtook traditional license sales for Office in 2017.[74]
Microsoft Office is available in several editions, which regroup a given number of applications for a specific price. Primarily, Microsoft sells Office as Microsoft 365. The editions are as follows:
Microsoft sells Office for a one-time purchase as Home & Student and Home & Business, however, these editions do not receive major updates.
Post-secondary students may obtain the university edition of Microsoft Office 365 subscription. It is limited to one user and two devices, plus the subscription price is valid for four years instead of just one. Apart from this, the university edition is identical in features to the Home Premium version. This marks the first time Microsoft does not offer physical or permanent software at academic pricing, in contrast to the university versions of Office 2010 and Office 2011. In addition, students eligible for DreamSpark program may receive select standalone Microsoft Office apps free of charge.
CLIPPIT.ACS. The latest versions that include the Office Assistant were Office 2003 (Windows) and Office 2004 (Mac).Microsoft Office has been criticized in the past for using proprietary file formats rather than open standards, which forces users who share data into adopting the same software platform.[78] However, on February 15, 2008, Microsoft made the entire documentation for the binary Office formats freely available under the Open Specification Promise.[79] Also, Office Open XML, the document format for the latest versions of Office for Windows and Mac, has been standardized under both Ecma International and ISO. Ecma International has published the Office Open XML specification free of copyrights and Microsoft has granted patent rights to the formats technology under the Open Specification Promise[80] and has made available free downloadable converters for previous versions of Microsoft Office including Office 2003, Office XP, Office 2000 and Office 2004 for the Mac. Third-party implementations of Office Open XML exist on the Mac platform (iWork 08) and Linux (OpenOffice.org 2.3 – Novell Edition only).
Another point of criticism Microsoft Office has faced was the lack of support in its Mac versions for Unicode and Bidirectional text languages, notably Arabic and Hebrew. This issue, which had existed since the first release in 1989, was addressed in the 2016 version.[81][82]
On November 13, 2018, a report initiated by the Government of the Netherlands concluded that Microsoft Office 2016 and Office 365 do not comply with GDPR, the European law which regulates data protection and privacy for all citizens in and outside the EU and EFTA region.[83] The investigation was initiated by the observation that Microsoft does not reveal or share publicly any data collected about users of its software. In addition, the company does not provide users of its (Office) software an option to turn off diagnostic and telemetry data sent back to the company. Researchers found that most of the data that the Microsoft software collects and "sends home" is diagnostics. Researchers also observed that Microsoft "seemingly tried to make the system GDPR compliant by storing Office documents on servers based in the EU". However, they discovered the software packages collected additional data that contained private user information, some of which was stored on servers located in the US.[84] The Netherlands Ministry of Justice hired Privacy Company to probe and evaluate the use of Microsoft Office products in the public sector.[85] "Microsoft systematically collects data on a large scale about the individual use of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Covertly, without informing people", researchers of the Privacy Company stated in their blog post. "Microsoft does not offer any choice with regard to the amount of data, or possibility to switch off the collection, or ability to see what data are collected, because the data stream is encoded."[86]
The researchers commented that there is no need for Microsoft to store information such as IPs and email addresses, which are collected automatically by the software. "Microsoft should not store these transient, functional data, unless the retention is strictly necessary, for example, for security purposes", the researchers conclude in the final report by the Netherlands Ministry of Justice.[87]
As a result of this in-depth study and its conclusions, the Netherlands regulatory body concluded that Microsoft has violated GDPR "on many counts" including "lack of transparency and purpose limitation, and the lack of a legal ground for the processing."[88] Microsoft has provided the Dutch authorities with an "improvement plan" that should satisfy Dutch regulators that it "would end all violations". The Dutch regulatory body is monitoring the situation and states that "If progress is deemed insufficient or if the improvements offered are unsatisfactory, SLM Microsoft Rijk will reconsider its position and may ask the Dutch Data Protection Authority to carry out a prior consultation and to impose enforcement measures."[89] When asked for a response by an IT professional publication, a Microsoft spokesperson stated: "We are committed to our customers’ privacy, putting them in control of their data and ensuring that Office ProPlus and other Microsoft products and services comply with GDPR and other applicable laws. We appreciate the opportunity to discuss our diagnostic data handling practices in Office ProPlus with the Dutch Ministry of Justice and look forward to a successful resolution of any concerns."[85] The user privacy data issue affects ProPlus subscriptions of Microsoft Office 2016 and Microsoft Office 365, including the online version of Microsoft Office 365.[90]
| Office version | Version number | Minimum operating system | Office support end date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.x | Various | Windows | 3.0[91] | September 30, 1998[92] |
| 4.x | 6.0 | 3.1 | November 1, 2000[93] | |
| 95 | 7.0 | NT 3.51 | December 31, 2001[94] | |
| 97 | 8.0 | NT 3.51 SP5 | January 16, 2004[95] | |
| 2000 | 9.0 | 95[96] | July 14, 2009 | |
| XP | 10.0 | NT 4.0 SP6a[97][98] | July 12, 2011[99] | |
| 2003 | 11.0 | 2000 SP3[100] | April 8, 2014 | |
| 2007 | 12.0 | XP SP2[101] | October 10, 2017[102] | |
| 2010 | 14.0 | XP SP3[103] | October 13, 2020 | |
| 2013 | 15.0 | 7[104] | April 11, 2023[105] | |
| 2016 | 16.0[106] | 7 SP1[107] | October 14, 2025[108][109] | |
| 2019 | 10 v1809[110] | |||
| 2021 | October 13, 2026 | |||