MS Office and Usage 

               

Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is a discontinued 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 (bundled set of productivity applications), 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.

It contains a word processor (Word), a spreadsheet program (Excel) and a presentation program (PowerPoint), an email client (Outlook), a database management system (Access), and a desktop publishing app (Publisher).

Office is produced in several versions targeted towards different end-users and computing environments. The original, and most widely used version, is the desktop version, available for PCs running the Windows and macOS operating systems. Microsoft also maintains mobile apps for Android and iOS. Office on the web is a version of the software that runs within a web browser.

Core Apps and Services:

Microsoft Word:

       

Microsoft Word, known also just as ‘Word’ is word processing software and a flagship product of Microsoft.

It is an integral part of the Microsoft Office suite of products and is the most widely-used word processor in the world. In fact, it’s estimated that Word is running on more than a billion devices worldwide.

First released in 1983 under a different name, Word celebrated its 25th birthday in 2018. Its popularity lies in its ease of use, plus the fact that it can be used on different operating systems including Macintosh and of course, Windows.

Word can be bought as a standalone product or as a part of Microsoft Office, which also includes programs like Excel and PowerPoint, for making presentations.

Recent new features of Word include:

Translator - Word can now translate words and sentences into other languages using the Microsoft Translator tool, which sits under the Review tab. This function has also been added to Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint.

Learning Tools - this feature helps make your documents easy to comprehend and helps with reading fluency. Use it to change column width for improved focus, page colour so the page can be scanned with less eye strain, and show breaks between syllables to improve word recognition and pronunciation. You can also use this tool to read your document aloud to you.

Digital pen - if you have a touch-enabled device, the latest version of Word (and other Office products) lets you draw with your finger, a mouse or a digital pen for easy annotation and note-taking.

Icons and SVGs (scalable vector graphics) - Word now has a library of icons and 3D images which can be inserted into documents to make them more visually appealing and to make an impact. Users can change colours and apply effects.

Excel:

                          

Excel is a spreadsheet program from Microsoft and a component of its Office product group for business applications. Microsoft Excel enables users to format, organize and calculate data in a spreadsheet.

By organizing data using software like Excel, data analysts and other users can make information easier to view as data is added or changed. Excel contains a large number of boxes called cells that are ordered in rows and columns. Data is placed in these cells.  

Excel is a part of the Microsoft Office and Office 365 suites and is compatible with other applications in the Office suite. The spreadsheet software is available for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS platforms.

The main uses of Excel include:

Data entry

Data management

Accounting

Financial analysis

Charting and graphing

Programming

Time management

Task management

Financial modeling

Customer relationship management (CRM)

Almost anything that needs to be organized!

PowerPoint:

                                     

PowerPoint was developed by Dennis Austin and Thomas Rudkin at Forethought Inc. It was supposed to be named Presenter, but the name was not adapted due to trademark issues. It was renamed PowerPoint in 1987 as suggested by Robert Gaskins.

In August of 1987, Microsoft bought Forethought for $14 million and turned it into its graphics business unit, where the company continued to develop the software. The first iteration was launched together with Windows 3.0 in 1990. It only allowed slide progression in one direction – forward – and the amount of customization was fairly limited.

Although it was conceived only for Macintosh computers in the very beginning, PowerPoint quickly became one of the most iconic trademarks and the first important acquisition of Microsoft. Even today, it holds up to 95 percent of the market share of presentation software.

PowerPoint allows users to create media-rich presentations constituted by a series of slides. Since it’s fully integrated with the other tools of the Microsoft Office suite, the user can import content created with Excel or Word into PowerPoint, as well as other media such as pictures, audio, and video clips.

To create slides, a series of templates are used to provide the user with pre-defined layouts for different purposes. Once the theme that will be used in the presentation is set by defining a standard font, background color, and layout, that slide is saved as “master slide.” The user can either change each other slide accordingly, or edit the master slide to propagate the change to all the other slides uniformly.

Outlook:

                                      

Microsoft Outlook was initially released to provide users with a desktop/local means of configuring POP3 and Web-based email accounts/services.

A user can compose, send, receive and manage one or more email accounts with Microsoft Outlook. Although mainly popular as an email client, Microsoft Outlook also allows users to create and manage contacts, calendars, tasks, a personal journal and Web browsing support.

It can configure and receive RSS feeds, social updates, calendar sharing, weather updates and more. Microsoft Outlook can be installed and used as a standalone application or with SharePoint and Exchange Server in an enterprise / networked environment.

Publisher:

                             

Microsoft Publisher is an entry-level graphic design program included in some versions of Microsoft Office. It is considered ideal for small business because it is user friendly and does not demand prior knowledge about the application or graphic design in general. Publisher includes templates for many types of common business needs, such as business cards, brochures, address labels and calendars. Microsoft offers the options to directly mail the file, export it as another file type or upload it to the cloud and publish online.

Skype for Business:

                   

Skype for Business (formerly Microsoft Lync and Office Communicator) is an enterprise software application for instant messaging and videotelephony developed by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft 365 (formerly Office) suite. It is designed for use with the on-premises Skype for Business Server software, and a software as a service version offered as part of 365. It supports text, audio, and video chat, and integrates with Microsoft 365 components such as Exchange and SharePoint.

The software was previously named Lync before rebranding to Skype for Business in 2015, co-branding it with the Microsoft-owned consumer messaging platform Skype (which had begun to integrate with Lync in 2013). Despite the same branding, Skype for Business and Skype have almost nothing in common and function as separate platforms.

In September 2017, Microsoft announced that it would phase out Skype for Business Online in favor of Microsoft Teams, a new cloud-based collaboration platform. Support for Skype for Businesses Online ended in July 2021, although a new version of Skype for Business Server will be available with a subscription license.

MS OneNote

                                 

Microsoft OneNote is a note-taking software developed by Microsoft. It is available as part of the Microsoft 365 suite and since 2014 has been free on all platforms outside the suite. OneNote is designed for free-form information gathering and multi-user collaboration. It gathers users' notes, drawings, screen clippings, and audio commentaries. Notes can be shared with other OneNote users over the Internet or a network.

OneNote is also available as a free, stand-alone app via the official website and the app stores of: Windows 10, MacOS, iOS, iPadOS and Android.[10] Microsoft also provides a web-based version of OneNote as part of OneDrive and Office for the web.

Uses of Microsoft Office is an essential tool or you can say today’s need. Whether you are a professional or a student or a retired person or a working employee. It doesn’t matter who you are or on which post you are. You should have knowledge of these basic tools for accessing or handling data. These applications help you in managing all your data. If one application does not fulfill your requirements then another one helps you to complete your work.

Suppose you are entering data but the data is very large that Excel can’t maintain then MS Access helps you out. So, You should have the basic knowledge of these so that your work can complete on time and help in business productivity.