Overview

Microsoft Word is an industry-standard word processing program. It is used by both businesses and personal users for authoring documents. Word includes basic page and text formatting capabilities, and includes several advanced features, such as mail merge, change tracking, document merging, and macro scripting. Newer versions of Word save documents in the Office Open XML .DOCX format, while earlier versions of the program use the proprietary .DOC format. Word is included with all versions of Microsoft Office along with Excel and PowerPoint. It is available for both Windows and Mac platforms.

User Interface

The Word user interface is composed of a menu bar, customizable toolbars, and a document authoring pane. The toolbars can be shown, hidden, and arranged in any order across the top of the application window. The document authoring pane view shows the current document composition as well as the page layout, which displays rulers and guidelines, margins, headers, and footers. Many of these tools support hotkey mappings for increased efficiency.

Capabilities

Microsoft Word includes tools for modifying font styles, creating tables, inserting bulleted and numbered lists, and importing images. It also includes advanced page formatting options, which can be used to adjust page margins, insert custom page breaks, and manage the layout of each page. The "Track Changes" feature allows users to keep a history of changes, which is useful when multiple users are working on a single document.

Word includes several document templates, which serve as a starting point for creating new documents. Templates are available for several types of documents, including business forms, labels, envelopes, menus, newsletters, planners, and home and educational documents. Custom templates (which are saved .DOT and .DOTX files) can also be created for company letterheads and other types of documents that require a consistent look and feel.

User Community

Microsoft Word users range from basic home users to professional document publishers. However, the largest group of Word users consists of business professionals. Word documents are often the standard means of sharing information within businesses and between organizations. Microsoft Word is also used by students and teachers for drafting and submitting homework assignments. Academic journals and other peer-reviewed periodicals use Word for creating document templates, abstract submissions, and publications. Word's strict document formatting standards ensure these documents maintain consistent formatting and structure.

Screenshots:

New Document	Templates	Document View
Document Info	Print	Save & Send
Help	Options	Open File Types

Features:

• Industry-standard, widely-used word processing program
• Customized application workspace toolbar layouts
• Document templating and custom page formatting
• Change tracking and document merging
• Integrated graphics drawing and image manipulation
• Publication to PDF format
• Mail merge document generation and database integration
• Advanced macro scripting support

System Requirements:

Mac OS

• Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later
• Intel processor
• 1GB RAM
• 2.5GB disk space
• 1280x800 display
• DVD drive

Windows

• Microsoft Windows XP with SP3 or later
• 500MHz processor
• 256MB RAM
• 2GB free disk space
• 1024x576 display
• DVD drive