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. 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. In 1981, Microsoft hired Charles Simon, the primary developer of Bravo, the first GUI word processor, which was developed at Xerox PARC. Main article: History of Microsoft Word Origins 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), and macOS (2001).Ĭommercial versions of Word are licensed as a standalone product or as a component of Microsoft Office 365, or Microsoft 365 Premium subscription, Windows RT or the discontinued Microsoft Works suite. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Microsoft Word is a word processing software developed by Microsoft.

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