Microsoft Word 97

The Microsoft Word word processor was first introduced for MS-DOS in 1983. Its design made use of a mouse and WYSIWYG graphics. Its crude WYSIWYG/mouse support was a direct response to the Apple Lisa/Mac, and VisiCorp Visi On. Initially it competed against many popular word processors such as WordStar, Multimate, and WordPerfect. Word for DOS was never really successful.

The Mac version was introduced in 1985 where it acquired a friendlier user interface and gained some popularity. A Microsoft Windows version was introduced in 1989, although Palantir WinText, NBI Legend, and Samna AMI/AMI Pro had beaten them to their own Windows platform. For a time Word for Windows competed with WordPerfect for Windows. There were also ports to OS/2, the Atari ST, and Unix.

The DOS, Mac, and Windows versions are quite different from each other, and each restarted their version numbering at "1.0". Later versions are bundled with Microsoft Office. Also see a complete list of word processors archived on Winworld.



Screenshots

Release notes

Word 97 was a very popular and stable version. It supports Windows 9x, and NT and there was a port to the DEC Alpha CPU. This is the last version that is compatible with NT 3.51. Word/Office 97 introduced the infamous "Office Assistant".

Wanted: English floppy images.

Product type
Application Word Processor
Vendor
Microsoft
Release date
1996
Minimum CPU
486
Minimum RAM
8MB
User interface
GUI
Platform
Windows
Download count
85 (6 for release)
  • 22222-OEM-2222222-22222
  • 1112-1111111

Downloads

Download name Version Language Architecture File size Downloads
Microsoft Word 97 (ISO) 97 English 136.45MB 3
Microsoft Word 97 (OEM) (ISO) 97 (OEM) English 136.44MB 0
Microsoft Word 97 SR-1 [German] (OEM) (ISO) 97 SR-1 German 151.38MB 0
Microsoft Word 97 SR-1 [Italian] (ISO) 97 SR-1 Italian 149.3MB 3
Microsoft Word 97 Viewer 97 Viewer English 2.33MB 0
Microsoft Word 97 [DEC Alpha] 97 (8.0.0.4030) [DEC Alpha] English 33.9MB 0
Microsoft Word 97 [German] (3.5-DMF) 97 German 34.84MB 0
Microsoft Word 97 [German] (OEM) (ISO) 97 German 123.55MB 0
Microsoft Word 97 [Polish] (3.5-DMF) 97 Polish 26.73MB 0
Microsoft Word 97 [Portuguese] (OEM) (ISO) 97 Portuguese 30.46MB 0
Microsoft Word 97 and Excel [DEC Alpha] (ISO) 97 for DEC Alpha English 83.37MB 0

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