What are Microsoft Office software?

Microsoft Office software includes: Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, FrontPage, Onenote, Access, Publisher, Visio, Picture Manager, SharePoint Designer, etc.

Microsoft Office is an office software suite based on the Windows operating system developed by Microsoft. Commonly used components include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. The latest version is Microsoft 365 (Office 2019).

Commonly used office components of Microsoft Office

1. Microsoft Office Word

Word is a word processing software. It is considered the main program of Office. It has a dominant share of the word processing software market. Its proprietary DOC format is respected as an industry standard, although its newer version, Word 2007, also supports an XML-based format. Word is also compatible with some versions of Microsoft Works. It is suitable for Windows and Mac platforms. Its main competitors are Writer, Star Office, Corel WordPerfect, and Apple Pages.

2. Microsoft Office Excel

Microsoft Office Excel is a spreadsheet program [a software program that performs numerical and budget calculations]. It is the earliest office component.

Excel has a variety of built-in functions that can classify, sort, and even draw charts on large amounts of data. Like Microsoft office Word, it has a dominant market share. It started out as a competitor to the dominant Lotus 1-2-3, but eventually it outsold it in greater numbers and faster, and it became the de facto standard. It is suitable for Windows and Mac platforms. Its main competitors are Calc, Star Office, and Corel Quattro Pro.

3. Microsoft Office Outlook

Microsoft Office Outlook - is a personal information management program and email communication software. Takes over Microsoft Mail in Office 97. But it is different from the Outlook Express that comes with the system: it includes an email client, calendar, task manager, and address book--it has many more functions than Outlook Express. Its main competitors for email programs are Mozilla Thunderbird (Mozilla) and Eudora. Its main competitors for personal information management programs are Mozilla and Lotus Organizer. It was only available for Windows platforms (later supported for Mac); a version was also included with most handheld computers. Its corresponding program in the Mac version is Microsoft Entourage (later replaced by Outlook).

4. Microsoft Office PowerPoint

Microsoft Office PowerPoint is a presentation software designed by Microsoft Corporation. Users can not only present on a projector or computer, but also print out the presentation and make it into film for application in a wider range of fields. You can use Powerpoint not only to create presentations, but also to hold face-to-face meetings, remote meetings over the Internet, or to show presentations to an audience online. The thing created by Powerpoint is called a presentation. It is a file with the format suffix: .ppt, or it can be saved as .pdf, picture format, etc. In the 2010 and 2013 versions, it can be saved as a video format. Each page in the presentation is called a slide, and each slide is both independent and interrelated content in the presentation.

5. Microsoft Office FrontPage

Microsoft Office FrontPage is a software for web design, production, publishing and management launched by Microsoft. FrontPage is considered an excellent tool for web page beginners due to its ease of use. However, its functions cannot meet higher requirements, so among high-end users, most use Adobe Dreamweaver as a substitute. Its main competitor is also Adobe Dreamweaver.

Canceled in Office 2007 and later versions and has no successor. Microsoft provides two solutions: Sharepoint Designer is suitable for servers with Sharepoint, and Express Web Designer is suitable for servers.

6. Microsoft Office Onenote

Microsoft Office OneNote enables you to capture, organize and reuse notes on your laptop, desktop computer or Tablet PC. It provides you with a place to store all your notes and allows you to work on them freely. OneNote 2003 also helps you capture information in a variety of ways, then organize and use it as needed. It is a new program in Office2003.

In Office 2013, it also launched a free application for iOS simultaneously. At the same time, it has also transformed into a classic Office application and is the main component of the Home Student Edition 2013.

7. Microsoft Office Access

Microsoft Office Access (formerly Microsoft Access) is a relational database management system released by Microsoft. It combines the two features of MicrosoftJetDatabaseEngine and graphical user interface, and is a member of Microsoft Office.

Access can access data in Access/Jet, MicrosoftSQLServer, Oracle, or any ODBC-compatible database. Skilled software designers and data analysts use it to develop application software, while some unskilled programmers and non-programmer "advanced users" can use it to develop simple application software. Although it supports some object-oriented (OO) technologies, it has not become a complete object-oriented development tool.

In fact, Access is also the name of another communication program from Microsoft, which wants to compete with ProComm and other similar programs. However, Microsoft later confirmed that this was a failed plan and discontinued it. A few years later they renamed the database software.

8. Microsoft Office Publisher

Microsoft Office Publisher is a desktop publishing application software released by Microsoft Corporation. It is often considered an entry-level desktop publishing application software. It can provide more powerful page element control functions than Microsoft Word, but is inferior to professional page layout software, such as Adobe's InDesign and Quark's Quark. XPress is slightly inferior.

Compared to other desktop publishing software, Publisher has historically been less popular among high-end business printing shops. It can only be used for Windows, and a considerable share of systems in the industry run Mac OS X from my hometown company. Publisher's positioning as an entry-level application software has caused many problems, such as the lack of corresponding fonts and embedded objects on the service provider's computer (although Publisher provides tools that can compress associated files into a self-releasing application) ). Many high-end features, such as transparency, object shadows, slugs, path text, embedded PDF output, etc., are either not fully implemented or simply not available. But some recent versions have improved a lot, focusing on color separation and handling color output correctly. Publisher 2007 also includes the long-awaited feature of outputting commercial publishing-quality PDFs with embedded fonts, which can be downloaded from the Microsoft website as an option.

Publisher is included with high-end versions of Microsoft Office. This reflects Microsoft's positioning of Publisher. It is an easy-to-use, affordable product compared to those heavyweight products. Its target users are mainly those who do not have professionals to produce marketing materials and other documents. small companies.

Most of the alternatives to Publisher, except Adobe PageMaker, do not provide the function of importing Publisher; however, Publisher can export to EMF (Enhanced Meta file) format, which can be supported by other software.

9. Microsoft Visio

Microsoft Visio is a flow chart and vector drawing software running under the Windows operating system. It is a part of Microsoft Office software.

After Microsoft acquired the company of the same name in 2000, Visio became a product of Microsoft. Its competitors are Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia FreeHand, and Corel Draw.

In addition, although VISIO is a part of Microsoft Office software. However, it is usually sold separately and is not bundled with the Microsoft Office suite. But usually higher versions of Office suites include Visio Viewer.

In Visio 2013, the default format of Visio is changed to .vsdx.

10. Microsoft Office Picture Manager

Microsoft Office Picture Manager is a basic picture management software, referred to as OIS, and is a component in Microsoft Office 2003 (with a A basic version of Google Picasa or Adobe Photoshop Elements is similar). Canceled in Office 2013.

11. Microsoft Photo Draw

Microsoft Photo Draw is a simple and easy-to-use program that provides photo or graphic editing and examples to help Microsoft Office and small business users Create custom-looking photos or graphics in PowerPoint, Word, Publisher, and the web. Especially for business users, Photo Draw reduces the number of steps required to complete a photo or graphics task. PhotoDraw includes professionally designed templates, preset default settings and auto-correction features. Users can easily create custom graphics without requiring graphics training or complex manuals. Users can use Photo Draw to assemble, use and customize any of the following graphic elements: clipart, shapes, photos or graphics (including scanned photos or graphics and photos or graphics downloaded from digital cameras), text and images from other graphics programs and user-drawn charts. Its competitors are Adobe Photoshop and CorelPainter.

12, Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project (or MSP) is a project management software program developed and sold by Microsoft. The software is designed to assist project managers in developing plans, allocating resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing budgets and analyzing workloads. The first version of Microsoft Project was Microsoft Project for Windows 95, released in 1995. Subsequent versions were released in 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2006. This application generates critical path schedules—although third-party critical chain correlation software is also available from Pro Chain and Spherical Angle. The schedule can be resource-based and the critical chain visualized as a Gantt chart. In addition, Project can identify different categories of users. These different types of users have different access levels to projects, overviews, and other data. Custom objects such as calendars, viewing options, tables, filters, and fields are shared with all users within the enterprise.

13. Microsoft SharePoint Designer

Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2007 is one of the solutions after Microsoft canceled Frontpage 2003, but this version is definitely not a simple improvement of Frontpage 2003 version, Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 is a new Web2.0 product for creating and customizing Microsoft SharePoint sites and generating workflow-enabled applications based on SharePoint technology. SharePoint Designer 2007 provides a variety of professional tools, using these tools, users can generate interactive solutions on the Share Point platform without writing code, design custom SharePoint sites, and maintain site performance with reports and managed permissions.

14. Microsoft InfoPath

Microsoft InfoPath is used to develop XML-based user form applications. It was first released in late 2003 as part of the Microsoft Office 2003 package. A key feature of InfoPath is its ability to support custom XML profiles to create and inspect XML documents. It can connect to external systems using XML Web Services through the MSXML and SOAP toolkits, and back-end and middle-tier systems can be configured to communicate using Web Services standards such as SOAP, UDDI, and WSDL. In addition, because the InfoPath file is based on XML, it can call data from external database resources and bind it to the table control element rather than the InfoPath itself.

Here's an example of what InfoPath can be used for: A user fills out a form offline using InfoPath on their laptop. InfoPath can check the validity of some fields in this form, and the user can attach a digital signature. The user can then connect to the server, submit the form (in XML), and wait for approval from a superior. Form templates can be automatically updated when users connect to the server.

Microsoft recently announced the cancellation of the InfoPath component, so InfoPath 15 is the final version.

15. Lync

The new brand Lync covers the previous Communications Server, Communications Online and Communicator, and includes Lync Web App and Lync Online components. The RC candidate version of Lync 2010 and Lync Server 2010 has been completed. Enterprise users can download and try it for free from Microsoft's official page. Lync provides tools such as enterprise voice, instant messaging, and web/audio/video conferencing in the same user interface and backend architecture, adding instant updates, address book and business card changes, and 720p high-definition video calls. Like Onenote, it also offers a free version for iOS.

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