Microsoft Office shared tools

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Microsoft Office shared tools are software components that are (or were) included in all Microsoft Office products.

Contents

Delve

Microsoft Office Delve (2020-present).svg

Office Delve allows Office 365 users to search and manage their emails, meetings, contacts, social networks and documents stored on OneDrive or Sites in Office 365. Delve uses machine learning and artificial intelligence. [1] In April 2015 Microsoft launched a mobile version of Office Delve in the App Store and Google Play for users with an Office 365 subscription. [2] In 2017, Microsoft dropped the Delve app from the Microsoft Store. [3]

Graph

Microsoft Graph (originally known as Microsoft Chart) is an OLE application deployed by Microsoft Office programs such as Excel and Access to create charts and graphs. The program is available as an OLE application object in Visual Basic. Microsoft Graph supports many different types of charts, but its output is dated. Office 2003 was the last version to use Microsoft Graph for hosting charts inside Office applications as OLE objects. Office 2007 – specifically, Excel 2007 – includes a new integrated charting engine, and the charts are native to the applications. The new engine supports advanced formatting, including 3D rendering, transparencies, and shadows. Chart layouts can also be customized to highlight various trends in the data. Microsoft Graph still exists for compatibility reasons, but the entry points are removed. This product can be used within other products, and is available in the Object menu in the Insert tab in Office Programs. Sold separately in Mac releases.

The first software sold under the name Microsoft Chart was an attempt from Microsoft to compete with the successful Lotus 1-2-3 by adding a companion to Microsoft Multiplan, the company's spreadsheet in the early 1980s. Microsoft Chart shared its box design and two-line menu with Multiplan, and could import Multiplan data. The simple graphs (pies, bars, lines) were drawn on the screen in graphics mode (which was not available on entry level computer models), and could not be printed on some dot matrix devices. The main drawback of Microsoft's solution at the time was the need to exit Multiplan and then load Chart to compose and draw a graph, because MS-DOS was not a multitasking operating system. In the early 1990s, Microsoft Chart was renamed Microsoft Graph.

Query

Visual Basic for Applications

WordArt

An example image created with WordArt. WordArt.png
An example image created with WordArt.

WordArt is a text-styling utility, created by Scott Forstall and Nat Brown (later Apple employees) while interning for Microsoft in 1991. [4] It allows users to create stylized text with various "special effects" such as textures, outlines, and many other manipulations that are not available through the standard font formatting. For example, one can create shadows, rotate, "bend", and "stretch" the shape of the text. WordArt is available in 30 different preset styles in Microsoft Word, however, it is customizable using the tools available on the WordArt toolbar and Drawing toolbar up to Office 2003, or on the WordArt tools tab since Office 2007. It is also available in Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Publisher. In Office 2010 and beyond, users can apply formatting effects such as shadow, bevel, glow, gradient glow, and reflection to their text.

In Office 2007, WordArt was given a complete overhaul in Excel and PowerPoint, with new styles, new effects, and the ability to apply WordArt to regular text boxes, and in Word, to body text. The new styles were included in Word 2010, but the presets revamped in Word 2013.

WordArt created in PowerPoint for Mac 2011 WordArt 2010.png
WordArt created in PowerPoint for Mac 2011

SmartArt

SmartArt, found under the Insert tab in the ribbon in PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and Outlook, is a new group of editable and formatted diagrams. There are 115 preset SmartArt graphics layout templates in categories such as list, process, cycle, and hierarchy. When an instance of a SmartArt is inserted, a Text Pane appears next to it to guide the user through entering text in the hierarchical levels. Each SmartArt graphic, based on its design, maps the text outline, automatically resized for best fit, onto the graphic. There are a number of "quick styles" for each graphic that apply largely different 3D effects to the graphic, and the graphic's shapes and text can be formatted through shape styles and WordArt styles. In addition, SmartArt graphics change their colors, fonts, and effects to match the document's theme. It was included in Office since 2006 to now.

Discontinued

Binder

Microsoft Binder was an application originally included with Microsoft Office 95, 97, and 2000 that allowed users to include different types of OLE 2.0 objects (e.g., documents, spreadsheets, presentations and projects) in one file. [5] Originally a test host for OLE 2.0, it was not widely used, and was discontinued after Office 2000.

The filename extension for Microsoft Binder files was .OBD; the Office Binder template format was .OBT. A Microsoft Office Binder Wizard used the extension .OBZ.

Binder was no longer shipped with Office versions starting from XP. [6] Office XP and Office 2003 comes with an optional Unbind utility that, upon execution, extracts the contents of the Binder document to a directory of the user’s choosing. [7] This utility may be installed either through the Add or Remove Features functionality of Microsoft Office’s installation wizard or online from Microsoft Download Center. [8]

Small Business Tools

Small Business Customer Manager (SBCM) was an Access-based tool which combined accounting data from most popular accounting software and Outlook contacts and allowed user to track customer profiles and maximize revenue. It integrated seamlessly with Word and Publisher.

Small Business Financial Manager (SBFM) was an Excel-based tool which allowed users to analyze data and create reports and charts based on a created from user's accounting data from popular accounting packages (i.e. QuickBooks). It was first released in 1996 and bundled with Small Business editions of Office 97 or with every Office 2000 suite except Standard. Originally it was created for Microsoft by Timeline Inc. and originally was called Accounting Analysis Pack. It was available in United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia.

List of SBFM versions:


Direct Mail Manager (DMM) was an-Internet-based tool which allowed businesses to conduct direct mail campaigns by importing address lists from Outlook, Excel, Access etc., verifying address lists by connecting to an Internet Site (ZIP-Station), printing envelopes, postcards and letters and using a mailing service. Originally it was released with Office 97 Small Business Edition 2.0 and subsequently bundled with every Office 2000 suite except Standard. This program was developed in association with Envelope Manager Software. An enhanced version called DAZzle Express was available from Envelope Manager Software. Additionally, Direct Mail Manager was available for United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy.

Business Planner (MSBP) contained business-planning resources, templates, articles, advice from experts. It allowed user to create a business plan and a marketing plan (US only). It was available for United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and France.

Data Analyzer

Microsoft Data Analyzer 2002 was part of Microsoft Office XP. Microsoft originally purchased the software as part of the intellectual property of Maximal Innovative Intelligence - Maximal's "Max" product was rebranded as Microsoft Data Analyzer. Even though it was a stand-alone application and was not available in any Office XP bundle, it was a part of the Office XP suite. It was not updated beyond version 3.5. [9]

Microsoft Data Analyzer allows analyzing and visualizing data and data trends, and is integrated with SQL Server Analysis Services. Reports and graphs generated could be saved as HTML, Microsoft Excel, or Microsoft PowerPoint files.

Document Scanning and Document Imaging

Microsoft Office Document Scanning (MODS) is a scanning and optical character recognition (OCR) application introduced first in Office XP. The OCR engine is based upon Nuance's OmniPage. [10] MODS is suited for creating archival copies of documents. It can embed OCR data into both MDI and TIFF files. This enables text search on the files, which is integrated into the Windows Search.

Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI) enables editing and annotating documents scanned by Microsoft Office Document Scanning. It was first introduced in Office XP, and was included in Office 2003 and Office 2007. Although it is not available in Office 2010, it is possible to install it from a previous version of Microsoft Office and use it with Office 2010. [11] (The Internet Fax feature in Office 2010 uses the Windows Fax printer driver to generate a TIFF file instead. [12] ) Microsoft offers MDI to TIFF File Converter, a command line tool, which allows users to convert one or more MDI files to TIFF. [13]

MODI supports Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) as well as its own proprietary format called MDI. It can save text generated from the OCR process into the original TIFF file. However, MODI produces TIFF files that violate the TIFF standard specifications [14] and are only usable by itself. [15]

In its default mode, the OCR engine will de-skew and re-orient the page where required.

Since Office 2003 Service Pack 3, MODI no longer takes over the file association with Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) files as part of the Service Pack's security changes. Also, it no longer supports JPEG compression in TIFF files. [16]

MODS and MODI are no longer available since Office 2010, although Microsoft recommends a workaround by installing the MODI component from SharePoint Designer 2007 or old Office media. [11]

Programmability

MODI exposes a document and an image object through Component Object Model (COM). It can convert scanned images to text under program control, using its built-in OCR engine.

The MODI object model is accessible from development tools that support the Component Object Model (COM) by using a reference to the Microsoft Office Document Imaging 11.0 Type Library. The MODI Viewer control is accessible from any development tool that supports ActiveX controls by adding Microsoft Office Document Imaging Viewer Control 11.0 or 12.0 (MDIVWCTL.DLL) to the application project. These folders are usually located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\MODI.

The MODI control became accessible in the Office 2003 release; while the associated programs were included in earlier Office XP, the object model was not exposed to programmatic control.

A simple example in Visual Basic .NET follows:

DiminputFileAsString="C:\test\multipage.tiff"DimstrRecTextAsString=""DimDoc1AsMODI.DocumentDoc1=NewMODI.DocumentDoc1.Create(inputFile)Doc1.OCR()' this will OCR all pages of a multi-page TIFF fileDoc1.Save()' this will save the deskewed reoriented images, and the OCR text, back to the inputFileForimageCounterAsInteger=0To(Doc1.Images.Count-1)' work your way through each page of resultsstrRecText&=Doc1.Images(imageCounter).Layout.Text' this puts the OCR results into a stringNextFile.AppendAllText("C:\test\testmodi.txt",strRecText)' write the OCR file out to diskDoc1.Close()' clean upDoc1=Nothing

MDI file format

Microsoft Document Imaging (MDI)
Filename extension
.mdi
Internet media type
image/vnd.ms-modi
Magic number 0x5045
Type of format Image file formats
Extended from TIFF

MODI uses a proprietary format with .mdi Filename extension for storing scanned documents together with optional annotations or metadata which can include the text generated by OCR process. It is known that MDI is a variant of TIFF. [17] [18] Key differences from TIFF include:

  • Magic number is 0x5045, instead of TIFF's 0x4D4D (ASCII MM) or 0x4949 (ASCII II).
  • Three proprietary image compression formats are used.
  • Numerous proprietary tag values are used.

Office Assistant

PhotoDraw

Photo Editor

Office Web Components

Office Web Components (OWC) are a group of Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) components available in Office 2000, XP, and 2003. These ActiveX Controls can be plugged into web pages, Visual Basic, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) forms, and Windows Forms, or programmed in-memory. The OWC can be used by any COM-compliant Component Object Model programming language. Applications such as Excel, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Project and Microsoft FrontPage allowed creating interactive web pages using Office Web Components.

The following components are included:

The Office Web Components were discontinued in Office 2007 except as a part of Office Project Server 2007. [19] However, they were available for download from Microsoft's website. Microsoft has not yet offered a complete OWC replacement. However, programmers can use a combination of third-party products, Excel Services, or Visual Studio Tools for Office to provide similar functionality.

The Pivot Table web component may have problems on Windows 7. [20] In many cases the problems are related to the new security settings in IE and can be solved by relaxing the restrictions in the relevant Internet Zone, allowing ActiveX controls and possibly cross-domain access. If the page is hosted locally in the computer, the settings for the zone are not accessible through the IE interface, and can be changed by editing the registry (under key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones\0]).

Four books in print cover OWC programming:

Clip Organizer

Microsoft Clip Organizer is Microsoft's clip art organizing software allowing users to find drawings, photographs, sounds, videos, and other media clips to include in presentations, publications, and other Office documents. It comes with a variety of stock media clips and offers more selection on the Microsoft Office Online website.

Picture Manager

Script Editor

Equation Editor

Equation Editor was a formula editor developed by Design Science that allowed users to construct math and science equations in a WYSIWYG environment, and was included in Microsoft Office and several other commercial applications. It was a simplified version of Design Science's MathType, evidenced with a dialog box enticing the user to upgrade to the full, paid version of the software. [21] It could be used as a standalone program or as an embedded object from within applications that support OLE. Its feature set had not changed significantly since its introduction in Word for Windows version 2.0.

Beginning with Office 2007, Equation Editor is no longer the default method of creating equations, and is kept for compatibility with old documents only. [22] Instead, a reengineered equation editor is included, which is built into the document-editing part of the Fluent User Interface on core Office 2007 programs and all Office 2010 and 2013 programs, rather than accessed through a separate dialog and being treated as an OLE object in the document. [23] In January 2018, Microsoft published a security update that completely removed the old Equation Editor for Office 2007, Office 2010, Office 2013 and Office 2016 when the update was installed, due to a vulnerability that was being actively exploited. [24]


Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Excel</span> Spreadsheet editor, part of Microsoft 365

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet editor developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and iPadOS. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Excel forms part of the Microsoft 365 suite of software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Office</span> Suite of office software

Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketing term for an office suite, the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Over the years, Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, Object Linking and Embedding data integration and Visual Basic for Applications scripting language. Microsoft also positions Office as a development platform for line-of-business software under the Office Business Applications brand.

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6.0 built into most desktop Microsoft Office applications. Although based on pre-.NET Visual Basic, which is no longer supported or updated by Microsoft, the VBA implementation in Office continues to be updated to support new Office features. VBA is used for professional and end-user development due to its perceived ease-of-use, Office's vast installed userbase, and extensive legacy in business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windows Script Host</span> Automation technology for Windows

The Microsoft Windows Script Host (WSH) is an automation technology for Microsoft Windows operating systems that provides scripting abilities comparable to batch files, but with a wider range of supported features. This tool was first provided on Windows 95 after Build 950a on the installation discs as an optional installation configurable and installable by means of the Control Panel, and then a standard component of Windows 98 and subsequent and Windows NT 4.0 Build 1381 and by means of Service Pack 4. The WSH is also a means of automation for Internet Explorer via the installed WSH engines from IE Version 3.0 onwards; at this time VBScript became means of automation for Microsoft Outlook 97. The WSH is also an optional install provided with a VBScript and JScript engine for Windows CE 3.0 and following and some third-party engines including Rexx and other forms of Basic are also available.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Works</span> Productivity software suite

Microsoft Works is a discontinued productivity software suite developed by Microsoft and sold from 1987 to 2009. Its core functionality includes a word processor, a spreadsheet and a database management system. Later versions have a calendar application and a dictionary while older releases include a terminal emulator. Works is available as a standalone program and as part of a namesake home productivity suite. Because of its low cost, companies frequently preinstalled Works on their low-cost machines. Works is smaller, less expensive, and has fewer features than contemporary major office suites such as Microsoft Office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Project</span> Project management software

Microsoft Project is project management software product, developed and sold by Microsoft. It is designed to assist a project manager in developing a schedule, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Office 2003</span> Office suite by Microsoft

Microsoft Office 2003 is an office suite developed and distributed by Microsoft for its Windows operating system. Office 2003 was released to manufacturing on August 19, 2003, and was later released to retail on October 21, 2003. The Mac OS X equivalent, Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac was released on May 11, 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Office XP</span> Version of Microsoft Office suite

Microsoft Office XP is an office suite which was officially revealed in July 2000 by Microsoft for the Windows operating system. Office XP was released to manufacturing on March 5, 2001, and was later made available to retail on May 31, 2001. A Mac OS X equivalent, Microsoft Office v. X was released on November 19, 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pages (word processor)</span> Word processor developed by Apple Inc.

Pages is a word processor developed by Apple Inc. It is part of the iWork productivity suite and runs on the macOS, iPadOS, and iOS operating systems. It is also available on iCloud on the web. The first version of Pages was released in February 2005. Pages is marketed by Apple as an easy-to-use application that allows users to quickly create documents on their devices. Many Apple-designed templates comprising different themes are included with Pages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Documents To Go</span> Office suite for portable operating systems

Documents To Go is BlackBerry's cross-platform office suite for Palm OS, Windows Mobile, Maemo, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, Android, and iOS. Also, a larger-screen version would have been included with the Palm Foleo, but Palm, Inc. cancelled the device before its release.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Office 2007</span> Version of Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office 2007 is an office suite for Windows, developed and published by Microsoft. It was officially revealed on March 9, 2006 and was the 12th version of Microsoft Office. It was released to manufacturing on November 3, 2006; it was subsequently made available to volume license customers on November 30, 2006, and later to retail on January 30, 2007. The Mac OS X equivalent, Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, was released on January 15, 2008.

As the next version of Windows NT after Windows 2000, as well as the successor to Windows Me, Windows XP introduced many new features but it also removed some others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Origin (data analysis software)</span> Scientific data analysis software

Origin is a proprietary computer program for interactive scientific graphing and data analysis. It is produced by OriginLab Corporation, and runs on Microsoft Windows. It has inspired several platform-independent open-source clones and alternatives like LabPlot and SciDAVis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Office 2010</span> 2010 version of Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office 2010 is a version of Microsoft Office for Microsoft Windows unveiled by Microsoft on May 15, 2009, and released to manufacturing on April 15, 2010, with general availability on June 15, 2010. The macOS equivalent, Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac was released on October 26, 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Microsoft Word</span>

The first version of Microsoft Word was developed by Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie, former Xerox programmers hired by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1981. Both programmers worked on Xerox Bravo, the first WYSIWYG word processor. The first Word version, Word 1.0, was released in October 1983 for Xenix and MS-DOS; it was followed by four very similar versions that were not very successful. The first Windows version was released in 1989, with a slightly improved interface. When Windows 3.0 was released in 1990, Word became a huge commercial success. Word for Windows 1.0 was followed by Word 2.0 in 1991 and Word 6.0 in 1993. Then it was renamed to Word 95 and Word 97, Word 2000 and Word for Office XP. With the release of Word 2003, the numbering was again year-based. Since then, Windows versions include Word 2007, Word 2010, Word 2013, Word 2016, and most recently, Word for Office 365.

List & Label is a professional reporting tool for software developers. It provides comprehensive design, print and export functions. The software component runs on Microsoft Windows and can be implemented in desktop, cloud and web applications. List & Label can be used to create user-defined dashboards, lists, invoices, forms and labels. It supports many development environments, frameworks and programming languages such as Microsoft Visual Studio, Embarcadero RAD Studio, .NET Framework, .NET Core, ASP.NET, C++, Delphi, Java, C Sharp and some more. List & Label either retrieves data from various sources via data binding, or works database independent. Reports are designed and created in the so-called List & Label Designer and then exported into a multitude of formats like PDF, Excel, XHTML and RTF. Since version 27 a web report designer for ASP.NET MVC is available.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solid PDF Tools</span>

Solid PDF Tools is a document reconstruction software product which allows users to convert PDFs into editable documents and create PDFs from a variety of file sources. The same technology used in the software's Solid Framework SDK is licensed by Adobe for Acrobat X

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Office 2013</span> Version of Microsoft Office released in 2013

Microsoft Office 2013 is a version of Microsoft Office, a productivity suite for Microsoft Windows. Unlike with Office 2010, no macOS equivalent was released.

References

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Further reading