[NTLUG:Discuss] OpenOffice - winword formatting error issues -- MS Word versions

[Bryan J. Smith]

Terry wrote:  
> Correction:
> I think Word 95 is version 6.0 (rather than 7.0)

Nope.  MS Word for Windows releases:


A)  Pre-Office, Win16 Versions (different versions than DOS):
 1.0 =~ MS Word 4.0 (for DOS)
 2.0 =~ MS Word 5.0 (for DOS)

Microsoft had different DOS versions, up thorough 5.0, while MS Word
for Windows was version 2.0.  This was confusing.  In fact, Microsoft
took forever to release MS Word for Windows, while Lotus gobbled up
a lightweight desktop publishing (DTP) app known as Ami Pro which
actually was the first WYSIWYG documentation program for Windows.


B)  Win16 Office Versions (application "version skip")
 6.0  = Office 4.0
 6.0a = Office 4.1
 6.0b = Office 4.2
 6.0c = Office 4.3

When Windows 3.1 took off, Microsoft killed the MS Word for DOS version,
the last being MS Word 5.0, and did a "version skip" of MS Word for
Windows to 6.0.  The MS Office Suite was called version 4.  There were
then 4 sub-revisions of the MS Office Suite:  4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 for
a number of years.

Although there is still some debates on why Microsoft kept revisioning
MS Word slightly, there was a well-documented case of purposely making
MS Word for Windows both DR-DOS and, even more so, OS/2 incompatible.
Unfortunately, MS Word for Windows 6.0 resulted in massive self-
incompatibilities because of its use of binary record reads/writes in
version 6.0 more than any other version.

Sometimes merely "patching" to 6.0c would cause you to be unable to
read many documents from earlier 6.0 versions.  Fortunately Norton
and others release "fix" tools for 6.0 to help recover these files.


C)  Win32 Office Versions (suite "version skip")
 7.0 = Office 7.0/95
 8.0 = Office 8.0/97, 98 on Mac
 9.0 = Office 9.0/2000, 2001 on Mac
10.0 = Office 10.0/XP, "X"/2002 on Mac
11.0 = Office 11.0/2003 (no Mac yet?)

With the introduction of Office 95, Microsoft finally "version skipped"
all of the applications as well as the suite itself to the same version.
Internally this was 7.0, but publicly it was 95.

I know the instinct is to assume Office 97 is 7.0, but it's actually 8.0.
So 7.0 is 95, 8.0 is 97.

The other Win32 versions are accurate as listed above, with the latest
Office being 11.0, known publicly as 2003.



-- 
     Linux Enthusiasts call me anti-Linux.
   Windows Enthusisats call me anti-Microsoft.
 They both must be correct because I have over a
decade of experience with both in mission critical
environments, resulting in a bigotry dedicated to
 mitigating risk and focusing on technologies ...
           not products or vendors
--------------------------------------------------
Bryan J. Smith, E.I.            b.j.smith at ieee.org