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Summary

Name Microsoft Word for MS-DOS Document
Version 5.0 - 5.4
Other names  
Identifiers MIME:  application/msword
Apple Uniform Type Identifier:  com.microsoft.word.doc
PUID:  x-fmt/275
Family  
Classification Word Processor
Disclosure  
Description Microsoft Word for MS-DOS Document is a proprietary binary format of Microsoft Word, word processing application, for MS-DOS first released in 1983. The first version was released on IBM PC DOS, developed by Microsoft, which Microsoft then re-branded as MS-DOS. The version was developed by Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie firstly for Xenix in February 1983 (titled as "Multi-Tool Word") and in October 1983 for MS-DOS operating systems. The application featured graphics video mode, mouse and printer support (printer support was added in version 2) in WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface and could run in text mode or graphics mode, with bold, italics, and underline features only available in the text mode. The version 5 of the format was released in 1989, with the release of Word for MS-MOS, which included added support for bookmarks, cross-references and conditions and loops in macros, remaining backwards compatible with Word 3.0 macros. Please see the full list of versions using the links provided in the Notes section.
Orientation Text
Byte order Little-endian (Intel)
Related file formats Is previous version of Microsoft Word for MS-DOS Document (5.5)
Is subsequent version of Microsoft Word for MS-DOS Document (1.x - 4.0)
Technical Environment  
Released  
Supported until  
Format Risk  
Developed by Microsoft Corporation
Supported by None.
Source Digital Preservation Department / The National Archives
Source date 02 Aug 2005
Source description  
Last updated 20 Jul 2022
Note https://web.archive.org/web/20211222235433/https://winworldpc.com/product/microsoft-word/5x-dos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_(computing)#Microsoft_Word_Binary_File_Format https://web.archive.org/web/20220517101947/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Word https://www.docfly.com/blog/2020/a-brief-history-of-microsoft-word
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