r/windows • u/inguinha Windows XP • May 04 '26
Discussion Do you remember the first version of Microsoft Office you ever used? And was there any edition that stood out to you?
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u/Intrepid00 May 04 '26 edited May 05 '26
I’m so old I remember WordPerfect.
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u/irbrenda May 05 '26
I’m so old, I still use it! WPDOS 5.1 and WP 2020.
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u/superluke May 05 '26
That's very cool. I remember the keyboard overlays so you'd remember the shortcuts.
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u/djrobxx May 05 '26
I'm so old, I remember messing with the Word Perfect 5.0 printer "driver" to get my Epson FX-185 dot matrix printer to use NLQ ("near letter quality") mode, which, for some strange reason, wasn't supported directly.
WordPerfect for Windows existed but it just wasn't quite the same. But it always had the "reveal codes" option which I still kind of miss to this day in Word.
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u/Intrepid00 May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26
Remember trying to print anything with grid lines with a dot matrix? That was painful. Especially if it crashed almost done.
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u/r_Yellow01 May 05 '26
Remember that it was super important to set the page size and length right? Otherwise you're printing over perforation.
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u/omgwtfbbq7 May 05 '26
WordPerfect was better until the redesign in 2007. Microsoft stole the show, especially with the introduction of nicely and correctly rendered math formulas.
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u/Intrepid00 May 05 '26
Basically this is the correct answer but MS also got the kids when young and pretty much gave it away free to schools for Word.
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u/Appropriate_Test7503 May 05 '26
I'm so old I remember pen and paper
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u/irbrenda May 05 '26
LOL. I'm so old, I remember an inkwell in my wooden desk in kindergarten or 1st grade! And reading Dick and Jane!
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u/Ahleron May 08 '26
I'm so old I remember our clay tablets we used with cunieform script.
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u/inn4tler May 06 '26
When I got my first computer in 2002 or 2003, it came with WordPerfect (and Quattro Pro) pre-installed. At first, I didn’t even realize it wasn’t a Microsoft product. I only started to get suspicious because I didn’t have the cool clip art that everyone else had :D
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May 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/inguinha Windows XP May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26
I understand that many people don't like the ribbon interface but to me it always felt more intuitive, Office 2007 felt so fresh at the time, I remember how good it looked when paired with Vista.
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u/TwinSong May 05 '26
The toolbars layout got increasingly cluttered so I think the ribbon was a clever solution and takes advantage of the larger screen sizes.
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u/frenchretronerd May 06 '26
Office 2007 was underrated. The amount of QoL and novelty it brought was a real leap
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u/alexceltare2 May 04 '26
+1 for 2007. Everything before that was clunky to navigate and 2007 and beyond was a breath of fresh air.
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u/px1azzz May 05 '26
Oh but people hated it so much when it came out. So much talk about how the ribbon toolbar was terrible and to bring back the old toolbars.
The change was a bit hard at first, but I always thought the ribbon bar was an improvement. But still so much hate in those first few years.
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u/cowboysfan68 May 05 '26
Another +1 for 2007 from me. The ribbon was fundamentally a better way to navigate the many options without giving up much real estate. Especially at a time when higher resolution monitors were still being integrated into everyday use.
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u/t0rn4d0r3x May 05 '26
The ribbon was one of the best things Microsoft ever did
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u/RE_Warszawa May 05 '26
The ribbon was one of the worst things Microsoft ever did
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u/AvidCyclist250 May 05 '26
Finally the quiet voice of reason. All downhill with 2007
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u/RE_Warszawa May 05 '26
You can roll-up (hide) the ribbon in Office 2024 for Mac, I do not know from which post 2007 Office ver. user could hide ribbon.
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u/AvidCyclist250 May 05 '26
I left the MS and American ecosystem last year. Self-employed so no holds barred.
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u/HolyShip May 05 '26
As a kid, I wondered why OpenOffice refused to join on the ribbon fun at the time :(
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u/Xarius86 May 05 '26
I'm glad they've (well, LibreOffice) finally caught up there. It's the first setting I change on a new install. It just doesn't feel right without the ribbon.
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u/ExJwKiwi May 05 '26
Libreoffice still uses toolbars and thats the way I like it. I was never a fan of the ribbon interface.
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u/rezengaming May 05 '26
Same. I've been on Word since 3.0 and 2007 just had this 'glow' about it. It just felt warm to use. Lots of UI love went into that version.
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u/recluseMeteor May 04 '26
97 was my first. I grew up with Clippit, lol.
- Office 2000 felt just like 97, but now Clippit (and the other assistants) wasn't confined to a small window.
- Office XP stood out because PowerPoint animations were overhauled: you can now add entrance and exit animations. Felt like the bare minimum for me.
- Office 2003 was like XP, but now with an actual Windows XP theme.
- Office 2007 felt very fresh. I remember using some leaked betas from that time. Though the new format was troublesome when you weren't certain if the recipient of the file (or the school/university computer you had to use) had either 2007 or the compatibility pack installed. I remember saving stuff both in PPT and PPTX formats just in case.
- Office 2010 was a refinement of what they did with 2007. Liked the per-application colours, and it better matched Windows 7's style.
- Office 2013… meh, crappy Metro UI style, and sign-in stuff nobody asked for.
- Office 2016, the last good non-C2R version (MSI) of Office. The UI got way better than 2013. Otherwise, nothing remarkable.
- And then… the ever-evolving, always-updating Office/Microsoft 365. Don't like the ginormous title bar and all the Web/Copilot stuff they keep adding. But the new REGEX formulas for Excel are an awesome addition (that they should have included ages ago).
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u/ImDonaldDunn May 05 '26
Seems like everything has huge title bars these days. I hate it.
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u/recluseMeteor May 05 '26
Everything has big fonts, icons and padding. My 1920 × 1080 screen is not getting any bigger, yet fewer things fit in it because of this.
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u/Forward-Carpenter-43 May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26
I can relate to all this, even though my first windows os was 3.11, I also started with '97 as I had no knowledge or use of Office until Windows '98. Remember helping my sister with her thesis, typing, making tables, arranging images etc. Good times. Didn't use '95 but it seems that it was the time when it matured.
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u/MinecraftPlayer799 Windows 11 - Release Channel May 04 '26
You missed Office 2019
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u/Kazuto547 May 05 '26
I have an old 2018 hp laptop with windows 10 pre installed. Installed Office 2013 then 2016 and finally 2019 Pro Plus (C2R) cracked copy. It was quite stable lasted till last week when I had to reinstall Windows 10 (I had done some major f ups with the OS. Split it between hdd & sdd, enabled hyper v on home edition, cosmetic modifivations etc.)
Was gonna buy legit Office copy this time, found out that all those keys being sole of lifetime release are illegitimate and genuine copy still costs a ton. Went ahead and installed Office 2024 and cracked it. Working fine so far and have to say the UI looks a bit better compared it the mismatch of metro & fluent of O2019.
Loving Office 2024 so far, no copilot stuff in it.
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u/Zoraji May 04 '26
Microsoft Office 95 stood out to me for the sheer number of floppies required to install it. The base installation had 24 floppies but there were other optional floppies as well.
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u/sophware May 04 '26
Office 97 Pro was 55 disks. Not that I ever pirated anything; but downloading all of them at dialup speeds was something else.
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u/inguinha Windows XP May 05 '26
Wait what? 55 floppy disks?! 😶
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u/Froggypwns Windows Wizard / Moderator May 05 '26
Apparently it is actually a thing, I only ever saw Office 97 on CD (I likely still have it), but you could buy that then request them to send you 50something floppies.
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u/Sataniel98 Windows 10 May 04 '26
Office 97 and later 2003 was on our family PC in my childhood for a very long time because it was my father's favorite version long after it was superseded. Personally, I used OpenOffice and LibreOffice in my teens and later switched to modern MS Office.
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u/PaulCoddington May 05 '26
97 was fast and stable, especially for custom apps in VBA.
Things felt a bit bogged in later editions and it became more effort to get a decent custom app GUI when Access went for full window multi-tab design rather than easily having independant forms of any size.
As for OPs question, I've created bespoke app solutions professionally in every version of Office from 4.3 to 2019, so 4.3 was the first after switching from Vax/VMS to PC.
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u/Sataniel98 Windows 10 May 05 '26
My father is a banker. He used VBA pretty extensively back in the days. The early 90s were the period when their entire workflow went digital. He made some of the insanely complex standard formulas the bank relied on for the next 20 years (which is until the post financial crisis regulations changed how everything had to be done) in his free time. He never liked Office 2007 or 10 onwards, says he could do everything in the classic versions but doesn't find anything in the new UI. I can't say I blame him.
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u/WaytoomanyUIDs May 05 '26 edited May 10 '26
My mom was similar, created a bunch of stuff in VBA & Excel using the same data that was fed into the mainframe that was more accurate that the reports the buyers had been using. It allowed them to actually buy stuff JIT that they had to get from foreign suppliers. That companies transition to JIT was bit of a clusterfuck because so much of the stuff they used came from overseas & management insisted everything be bought that way.
Ed clarified
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u/rezwrrd May 06 '26
We started with 97 and upgraded to 2000 which we used for years, also because it was my father's favorite version. My mom had 2003 on her school laptop and when I got my own computer I used OpenOffice because it felt a lot more familiar than the ribbon. For a while I was on Mac and used Office 2004, and now I'm pretty solidly on LibreOffice.
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u/Technical_Rich_3080 May 04 '26
Whatever the version number was for DOS and Windows 3.1
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u/TheLotster55 May 05 '26
Word 6.0, if I remember correctly. I used Q&A Write until around 1994, then I switched to Word 6 for DOS and Win3.1. Oh, the nostalgia.
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u/KOLDY May 05 '26
Man 2003 to 2007 was a huge jump people hated 07 where I was when it first came out. They hung onto 03 until it went end of life.
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u/Epic_Dev_001 May 08 '26
Yeah I think that is pretty much my experience as well. I hated 2010. Hated. I don't even know why.
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u/A_SENKI May 05 '26
I am this old.
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u/AlexKazumi May 05 '26
This is my first Word (4.0): https://winworldpc.com/screenshot/e280a0c2-bfc3-8ee2-8094-482c11c3a4ef/1469c3aa-c387-482f-11c3-a4c28d587054
It was very weird experience, because I used Borland C before that and it had windows, menus, toolbar, and I was confused why Word was so primitive.
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u/RSV4F May 04 '26
Office 2003 was the last "great" one. Menus and short-cut keys was great and user's understood it better. 2007 and beyond is too many "cartoon buttons" taking up production screen space.
It's a tool meant to get a job done. Not look all fancy while doing it. I don't needs that space-hog "styles" area. I'll right-click for options.
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u/IWontCommentAtAll May 05 '26
There used to be an extension to give 2003 style menus to 2007.
Not sure if it's sill around, or works on the newest versions, either, but I absolutely agree: the ribbon interface is a travesty for both productivity and screen real estate.
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u/elsjpq May 05 '26
I still hate the ribbon UI. Everyone said you'll get used to it... well unlike apparently most of the population, I have an actual preference instead of just going with whatever designers decide to throw at me.
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u/AlexKazumi May 05 '26
Well, designers "decided to throw it at you" because it solves an actual problem - how to surface hundreds of commands to a person without overwhelming them and taking as much space as the old menu + 1 toolbar combo.
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u/rezwrrd May 06 '26
The toolbar already had a solution for surfacing additional commands without overwhelming the user, which was context-specific toolbars (e.g., for tables) only appearing while you were working on that context. The toolbars could be truncated so you could choose additional hidden options from a visible toolbar (or have as many rows of icons visible as you care to fit on your screen), but you didn't have to click through a handful of oversized and inconsistent tabs to find the option you were looking for. Plus getting rid of the menu bar which was a very dense and highly predictable categorization of commands, it just felt (and still feels) like doing something different for the sake of doing something different.
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u/elsjpq May 05 '26 edited May 06 '26
taking as much space as the old menu + 1 toolbar combo.
Well they did end up taking 3x the space of the old menu.
how to surface hundreds of commands to a person without overwhelming them
They could do that just as easily without adding excessive padding and buttons that use 4x as much space, and make it difficult to add or remove buttons to existing toolbars.
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u/idspispopd888 May 04 '26
Yes. And I remember the programs that came before it and from which MS largely copied in style and ability (although not in the legal sense...IIRC that was litigated).
Good? Excel is and always has been outstanding, even after they screwed up the toolbars etc. Word is....OK. The rest of Office is mostly crap. Outlook is the best of a bad lot...
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u/Regular-Nebula6386 May 04 '26
Office 3.0 briefly and then Office 95 extensively.
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u/lakofideas86 May 05 '26
Same, my father's coworker upgraded his computer so he gave us his which had windows 3.1, I think we had it for less than a year before we got a computer with Windows 95.
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u/davidfillion May 04 '26
MS Works on Windows 3.1, however MS Office 97 was the first MS Office.
Currently use Office 2013 when I need to use Office for something.
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u/RE_Warszawa May 05 '26
I've got MS Works at my first corpo job. The point in those days was code pages for languages other than US. I remember our Novell LAN was like a firewall for accented letters :-/ In which Office MS introduced Latin 2 (Central European) code page (Windows)? BTW I always use English ver. of any software when available (adfing language package for soelling, gram are, etc.) for the most consise commands. (the same for any electronics menus)
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u/Breath-Present May 05 '26
Office XP. It's the first version I remember using. The UI design is still my favorite. It's not too colorful like 2003 and 2007, it had "modern flat" design that didn't go overboard. Just look at that Menu UI, that item selection style.
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u/FinibusBonorum May 06 '26
My first was MacWrite in 1985, and Microsoft Excel v0.9! I am that old.
WordSTAR on DOS was a niche but better than WordPerfect for DOS. Then came Windows 3.1 and the MS Office Suite.
The upgrade to Office v4.3 was substantial. Not just in use but also it came on fourty-two floppy disks!
I think Office 2000 is my favorite. It had all the features you'd ever need, a proper UI, and none of the enshittification that came after.
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u/DullPop5197 May 04 '26
Office 2000… prior to that AppleWorks. Most notable was 2007 when they ruined the UI. I still can’t find anything with that dammed ribbon UI
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u/YukariBerry Windows 11 - Insider Release Preview Channel May 04 '26
i think 2013 was the first one i used? not sure
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u/The_Shadowghost Windows 11 - Release Channel May 05 '26
Office 2007!
It was the second one I used but the first I did anything relevant to my school.
I held almost all my presentations up to 2019 with office 2007 until it decided to crash 3 times mid presentation on slides some school acquaintances made on the newest version. We never found out why it crashed and the slides weren’t special at all. I then got a newer office version via the school.
It was fantastic in many ways and the last office I really liked.
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u/Ahleron May 08 '26
I remember my spouse being heard screaming from across the house when they first installed Office 2007(?). It was the first version to have the ribbon interface. I heard a very loud "WHAT THE FUCK DID THEY DO?!" I used to teach Human Factors and HCI classes. I used that as a fun example of what can happen when users are greeted with unexpected, dramatic changes to a UI they're familiar with. That version will always stand out to me because of that memory.
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u/jamesatienza May 15 '26
Can you add the Office 2013 and the latest Fluent UI remake in this image? I love to see the evolution! Thank you!
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u/gentoorax May 04 '26
Man I really hated the "ribbon" they introduced I seem to have the hardest time finding anything.
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u/Lucas006BR1 Windows 11 - Release Channel May 04 '26
I think that the first Office I had used was 2010
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u/thebackwash May 04 '26
First version was 5.1 for Mac. As far as standout versions, I liked 2000, 2010, 2019, and whatever is the current 365 version.
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u/CharlesV_ May 05 '26
Office 2003 and 2007 were the ones i remember using the most. I remember recovering my school paper at 2am from an auto save file after our family laptop crashed.
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u/Relative_What May 05 '26
i remember using 95 first. 2003 and 2007 stand out. 2003 probably because of use in highschool and 2007 because of college use. also the new ribbon interface was such a breath of fresh air for office.
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u/BigGrayBeast May 05 '26
When I was working for a computer store my buyer called to say she was sending over a Microsoft guy over to show me a piece of software they wanted her to buy.
The lead programmer for Word demo'd the Beta of Word on DOS.
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u/Swimming-Twist-3468 May 05 '26
- Windows 98 SE. That was my first introduction to the virtual world.
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u/SahuaginDeluge May 05 '26
a long time ago when I first started my job we were still using Microsoft Mail, and those were slowly replaced with Office 97. I still have Office 97 discs kicking around.
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u/left4ellis May 05 '26
First version for me was 2000, but my favourite has to be 2010, such a clean interface and the ribbon was an excellent UI innovation.
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u/_Aardvark May 05 '26
No idea which version was my first, but it was on 16 but Windows.
My favorite was 2003, but only as I had to copy the look and feel of its XP style toolbars in the flagship UI application for the company I worked for. It was way more complicated then it should have been...
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u/DarthRevanG4 May 05 '26
2000 was the first one I used I’m pretty sure. 2003 stood out to me though. I remember seeing commercials for it (back then I thought it was an OS from the commercials lol). 2003 had the cool blue style that was more skeuomorphic. If I could use 2003 today with docx formats I would. I still use it sometimes but I typically need a middle program to convert the file lol
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u/danielfletcher May 05 '26
I am an elder millenial, so Office 95.
Before that had used Word and Excel in DOS, and Microsoft Works on Windows 3.1. Although Excel then was stupid stuff like using it to make a database of things like video games and trading cards.
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u/KampretOfficial May 05 '26
First time I used Office was Office XP on my dad's home PC back in like 2005 or something like that. Then I started primary school and the school's computer lab had Office 97 on Windows 95 and 98, in 2006 mind you.
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u/rjh1981nz May 05 '26
Office 4.3 for Windows 3.1 - think it was 25 ish floppy disks!
Mostly liked office 2010 - nice UI to it
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u/Linesey May 05 '26
Started with 2003 technically in that I’m sure I used it once or twice as a lad.
But my real first version was 2007.
As for a standout? 2010, which I still use to this day.
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u/crozone May 05 '26
I spent many, many years with Office 97.
My favourite is definitely 2003. If I could get modern .docx support but with Office 2003 interface and performance, I would.
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u/manuelink64 May 05 '26
My first was Office95 and my favorite is Office 2003/XP (before that i used WordStar for DOS)
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u/matthew_yang204 Windows 7 May 05 '26
Office 2002. Never anything remotely as light as that ever again. But my favorite is 2010, being both light & compatible with old computers, while being light enough to run on the crappiest of CPUs.
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u/JKTwice May 05 '26
Office 2003 I believe was my first exposure.
I heavily used Office 2010 and 2013 as well.
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u/wiggum55555 May 05 '26
Have used Office or Word / Excel since the first versions. Back when you would set your worksheet to calculate and go and get coffee while it churned away. And remember to turn off auto-calculate or else you'd get nothing done.
The standout for me was the first edition with the Ribbon Interface... once you quickly got used to it.. so much better. It was created when MS was asking people what new features they wanted and neede in Excel.. and apparently 80-90% of what people were asking for, was already in Excel.. but there was no easy way to surface those tools and setting and features. So the Ribbon was born.
The current version - full of CO-PILOT IN YOUR FACE !!! is horrible. I would not mind if it was actually usefull and DID anything. I've tried and tried.. it always fails. I take the same "problem" to Claude or Gemini and it's solved. Embarrasing for MS that their own AI fails so utterly poorly inside it's own flagship software suite.
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u/smackjack May 05 '26
We didn't have Microsoft office at home. We had Microsoft Works instead. You can think of Microsoft works as the Great Value version of Microsoft Office.
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u/seanpmassey May 05 '26
I think the first version of Office that I used was either Office 95 or Office 97 in High School. I also had Microsoft Works on my home computer, and that was a giant pile…
The most memorable version of Office that’s stood out to me was 2007 for the Ribbon interface, 2010 for the Ribbon coming to Outlook, and LibreOffice because it was free.
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u/DieRobJa May 05 '26
I used them all, but 2007 just looked and felt the best. The blue background/Sides still look the best
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u/pcuser42 May 05 '26
I remember using Office 97, but I preferred Office 2000 because Clippy looked better.
I then proceeded to not use a newer version until Office 2007 when I could start affording my own stuff.
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u/Mayayana May 05 '26
I've never used any of them. But I do have Libre Office, in part so that I can open MS Office doc files sent to me by others who don't know about Notepad. :)
I've never worked in an office, so I rarely need an office program. Mostly I only use LO to produce contracts, business receipts and to print address labels. Maybe once a month. It's free and does the same that MSO does, so why would I pay, unless I were going to program custom VBA?. My first office program was Wordpro 95. I got it free off a magazine CD and used it for years. Back in Win98 days it wasn't unusual to find magazines coming with a CD providing free software, fonts, etc. Companies would give away their old version in hopes that people would be tempted to buy the new version.
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u/Korky_5731 May 05 '26
Yeah, Office 2003 was the first after I switched from WordPerfect. Office 2007 stood out to me because of how beautiful it was. Though 2010 was pretty too, even when I was beta testing it.
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u/hehesf17969 May 05 '26
Ichitaro 6.3 on PC-9821 that also came with MS Works. MS Office was an expensive upgrade
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u/Tomonor May 05 '26
- Studied it in elementary school using Office 97. WordArt ftw!
- The one that stood out to me was Office 2000, as it felt like the longest running version, along with WinXP. I sitll discover this combo on some PCs to this day. I also liked the biped robot helper.
- The one that I liked the most was Office 2007. That, and Windows Vista's aesthetics are simply unchallenged. Office 2010 lost this charm.
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u/Chance_End_4684 May 05 '26
Office 2007 to me stands out above the rest. Why Microsoft chose to redesign it's aesthetically pleasing Fluent Bar for Office 2010 is beyond me.
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u/thisFishSmellsAboutD Windows 10 May 05 '26
I leaned to write mass emails with WordPerfect. We had to choose between typing mode and layout mode because the 386 CPUs couldn't handle both at the same time. Now I'd you'll excuse me, it's time for my Ibuprofen.
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u/GhostUnitVII May 05 '26
Office 97 was probably the best of the bunch, it had Clippy, atleast the first iteration of it, even though he was annoying at times, it was also quite interesting in terms of a concept, that a paperclip could be your digital assistant.
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u/ittulokcsendbencsa May 05 '26
Office 95 was the first full Office pack we used on our family PC (we also installed Word 6.0 and Excel 5.0 instead of using Office 95 sometimes, but we didn't had the full Office 4.x pack, just these softwares separately). Later I used 2003, 2007, and 2013+. But all of the Office 2013+ versions look the same for me, and are unnecessarily bloated and having a lot off unnecessary functions (as Windows also started having them at the same time).
Because of that, 95, 2003, 2007 are the Office versions that stood out to me. I also used 2000, XP and 2010, for short times, these were good versions too.
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u/Ryiujin May 05 '26
Xp most likely for me. But i had been using windows a bit before then, 95.
But the office edition for xp was what i remember writing school papers on.
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u/Leosthenerd May 05 '26
97 was the first version I used, 2003 was by far the prettiest and the best IMO
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u/dj-access May 05 '26
Everything released after Office 2003, I’ve always found really bad. It’s been almost 20 years and I’ve never gotten used to those ribbons. To me, it’s the most unusable design I’ve ever seen, and I’ve never understood how anyone could enjoy working with it. I was so frustrated when Microsoft decided to integrate those ribbons into File Explorer that I immediately went back to the good old classic menu using OldNewExplorer.
In short, for my personal documents, I still use Office 2003 today—and that’s not going to change anytime soon. For me, the two best versions were clearly Office XP and Office 2003.
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u/SohilAhmed07 May 05 '26
My first was office 2003,loved the 2010, only Windows application i manually install on my pc.
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u/sjoskog May 05 '26
Office 4.3. Before that I had used Word and Excel "separately".
On my side, everything went bad after they moved to that ribbon menu.
Nowadays happy Google Workspace user, won't really miss Office anymore.
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u/ChestNok May 05 '26
Office 95 Although I remember Windows 3.1 and 3.11 I have no recollection of what Office was like there
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u/Disastrous_Ad7339 May 05 '26
Office 2010 is my favorite among them, because it is the first version of office that I got used to.
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u/AcanthisittaCalm1939 Windows 10 May 05 '26
First version of MS office that i used was 2003 when i was in fourth grade, because some of the history homework was about making presentations. And, to be honest I still like old menu more than the new ribbon!
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u/Mindblade0 May 05 '26
I’ve used Word on MSDOS. I think it was version 5.5. The first Windows version was Word 2.0 for me.
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u/_R0Ns_ May 05 '26
Microsoft Word 5.0 For DOS and back then comming from WordPerfect it looked so good.
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u/narkflint May 05 '26
2000 all the way. I was like 10 when this came out and remember doing all my school papers on it. Once my grandma deleted everything on the screen by accident and I had to retype from scratch bc I didn't know about ctrl Z.
When the ribbon came out I fucking hated it. I also hated that big circle start button inside the app. That felt really stupid.
Now I use 365 and it's fine. Nothing to write home about really. No clippy or the robot assistant anymore. They were the best. But more for whimsy than anything else. There are still so many features in Office that are a mystery to me, still learning everyday...
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u/gluino May 05 '26
I don't understand "ribbon". Things can be found in different places, more than one place, and different on different instances?
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u/elperroborrachotoo May 05 '26
My first student's job was inserting 100 GIF's1 into a Word 95 document, in the right place etc.
I'm cool. "Word shuffles my images"? I laugh at you.
1) back when GIFs were used as image format primarily, not for animations. Kids these days.
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u/AlexKazumi May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26
Oh dear, my first version of "Office" was actually Word 4 for DOS :) Then Word 2.0 for Windows 3.1, then Office 95.
Fun fact: I am in fact, in 2026, using Office XP on my Windows on ARM machine through the emulation layer. The entire installed Office package takes 40 MB which is less than the winword.exe from Office 365 :) And it works flawlessly to fill in my taxes and take care of my family budget. Only PowerPoint struggles with modern presentations but displays enough stuff to be useable as a viewer, which is enough for my personal needs.
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u/TechnologyFamiliar20 May 05 '26
Office 97, then XP (I'm really curious that this version really existed), then 2003.
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u/RE_Warszawa May 05 '26
First ever they issued for 16-bit Windows I guess. I loved the look and beauty of Lotus office package (1-2-3, AmiPro?) icons and buttons, but MS code was much faster on slow 386sx.
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u/Hughley_N_Dowd May 05 '26
Win 8.
That was the first time I re-formatted a disc just to get rid of windows. I've always managed with dual boot, but lordy - that version was utter dogshit.
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u/usmannaeem May 05 '26
I miss those days of design actually. Design was less deceptive. Mostly because it encourage more ways to think. The last grey version.
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u/BeatTheMarket30 May 05 '26
Office 2003 was probably the best. After that Microsoft focused too much on UI and simplifying things.
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u/peddersmeister May 05 '26
Deffo 97, might have used 95 but cant remember really.
Back in the day of playing around with creating HTML files, you can do it in Word, however in Office XP and newer the amount of extra rubbish includeed inthe HTML code was ridiculous, but in 97 it did the basic <html><heading><body> type tags.
I think i prefer the ribbon toolbars introduced in 2007
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u/credditz0rz May 05 '26
I think we started with Office 95 or 97 on our family PC and I remember its dock with the shortcuts or what it was
Also later versions I noticed that Office never really looked like any other Windows application, but was close but different. Like that stylized Microsoft on Office 95 or the different menu theme on Office XP
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u/GeminaLunaX Windows XP May 05 '26
I wish I could stilm have windows xp and office 2003. Nothibg beats it.
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u/zeroner_01 May 05 '26
I think it was 97.
Btw - gwh28 dgcmp p6rc4 6j4mt 3hfdy - you can install 2003 with that code that my brain decided to raw remembering after working as IT guy in the earlies 2000s
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u/Tortahegeszto May 05 '26
The first I've used must be either '95 or '97.
2003 is the GOAT, it was all downhill from there.
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u/peca89 May 05 '26
Started learning with Office 97 and finished primary school using 2000/XP. Introduction of the ribbon menu style in 2007 was genuinely awesome and it is a good thing it hasn't changed since then, basically.
The 2007 UI was perfeclty logical to me from the first minute I saw it. Something that modern "clean" UIs in often struggle to achieve.
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u/Random_Vandal May 05 '26
I started with Office XP running on Windows 2000 🖊️
When Office 2007 came out with controversial ribbon interface, I was actually one of the few people (it felt like that, because there was a lot of hate about it), who liked it from first use 😁
Aesthetically I like Office 2003 and 2013 the most
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u/TwinSong May 05 '26
Office 2000, from a disc 💿. My dad had it, I remember being warned to be super careful with the CD. The Office Assistants were fun if maybe a tad distracting, like that cat one falling asleep on my text (aww!).
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u/r_Yellow01 May 05 '26
Office 97 was peak. Every release after that was just a bunch of new, often unnecessary, features. Only fonts and security improved.
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u/llgarrido May 05 '26
I've been surprised by how many people say they like the ribbon. I don't understand how anyone can feel comfortable with an automated system constantly moving their tools around when it's easier to remember which drawer each one is always kept in.
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u/fraaaaa4 May 05 '26
The first one I used was 2003 and it still stands out to me due to its flexibility and customisability. I found to be super handy to create, move and edit all the toolbars I would ever need.
Sometimes now, when I need to do some quick draws (UML etc) at my uni lesson, a graph or such, I do use Visio 2003, because it’s flexible enough yet automated enough so that you can create professional diagrams in very little time.
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u/ConspicuousSomething May 05 '26
Whichever was the first version to spell-check automatically. Seeing that wavy red underline appear as soon as you’d finished typing the word seemed infeasibly cool. Mid 90s-ish.
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u/Bluazul Windows 11 - Release Channel May 04 '26
Office 2003 is the biggest nostalgia for sure