Microsoft Word Celebrates its 40th Anniversary

Microsoft Word celebrated its 40th anniversary this week. The app first launched as “Multi-Tool Word” back on October 25, 1983, on the Xenix Unix variant, and it later shipped on the Macintosh and other platforms before launching on Windows 2.x in 1989.

“From its humble beginnings, Word has gone on to become one of the most popular office tools in the world, and pretty much everyone is familiar with it in one way or another,” Microsoft said in a celebration post on the Microsoft 365 Insider blog this week. The company also shared the following timeline of Word versions over the past 40 years.

Word still remains a key pillar of the Microsoft 365 productivity ecosystem, and the company is in the process of adding new AI-powered features to it. The Microsoft 365 Copilot, which will be available as a paid add-on for commercial customers starting on November 1, will add new generative AI features to help users create drafts and write more effectively.

As Word is still facing competition from Google Docs, Microsoft also continues its work to make the Word web app a first-class experience. “We’re continuing to invest and innovate in Word for the web to make it a great creation and consumption tool. This includes using your feedback to prioritize our areas of investment,” the company said this week.

Another key area of focus for the Office team is extensibility and customization. “We are committed to giving Word developers the tools and capabilities they need to build amazing experiences and support custom workflows,” Microsoft said.

Even though Word remains one of the most popular word processors on the market, many users may prefer other apps that aren’t as bloated today. Earlier this year, Paul also described some of his growing pains with Word, including in-app advertisements for Microsoft 365.

Are you a heavy Word user or do you now prefer other alternatives? Let us know your thoughts about Word turning 40 in the comments!