Slide1: Chris Pratley Group Program Manager Microsoft Word


Overview: Overview Office Unicode history and strategy Implementation Benefits of Unicode to Office users Demo of Word


Office97 Unicode Strategy: Office97 Unicode Strategy Office97: first Unicode release (Jan. 94 - Nov. 96) Office97 driving factors Customers operate world-wide (US only 40%) Need to handle multiple code pages in Europe Office97 goals Enable loss-less file exchange world-wide Solve code page problems in Europe Development efficiency for Asian and Euro versions Unified source code base – but still different executables Unified development process Delta between language versions shrinks from 18 to 2 months Lay foundation for future


Office2000 Unicode Strategy: Office2000 Unicode Strategy Office2000 goals Reduce Total Cost of Ownership for large corporations Single version to deploy and administer globally Configurable interface to handle local needs Language of User Interface can be changed Additional language features can be enabled as needed Emulate any localized version “Français”, “日本語”, “한글”, “עברית“,”عربي”, etc. Streamline development process further Core “US” team ships global product Integrate bi-directional version team (Arabic, Hebrew) Focus on needs of bilingual and multilingual users


Officexp Unicode Strategy: Officexp Unicode Strategy Officexp goals Finish the globalization work begun in Office2000 Extend functionality to all applications Integrate Complex Scripts support (Indic, Thai, Vietnamese) हिन्दी, தமிழில், ภาษาไทย, Việt  Streamline development process further Single build process from start to finish Integrate complex scripts team Deepen Unicode support Unicode 3.0 languages (ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ,  አማርኛ, etc.) UTF-16 (esp. plane 2: 𧆓𨣓𨲄𪀒) More complex script and limited combining diacritic coverage


The Word Family Tree: The Word Family Tree Version


Implementation: Implementation Core applications are Unicode internally Word, Excel, PowerPoint (Office97) Access, Publisher (new in Office2000) Databases and drivers are Unicode FrontPage (new in Officexp) Outlook – still only Unicode in mail Uses Word as mail editor by default


Implementation: Implementation Difficulties encountered with Unicode Lack of full system support in Win9x Every app needed different solution MFC-based apps were hardest Missing system services (e.g. font-linking) Interoperation with code-page based systems Educating test team about Unicode Testing issues different vs. MBCS Lack of expertise in uncommon languages


Implementation: Implementation Office shared code services Central Win32 Unicode text API “wrappers” Simulate nearly full support on Win9x ExtTextOutW and others Provide optional font-linked output Hardcode “preferred fonts” by script, style User-specified font-fallbacks via reg key (if any) Font categorization by script range (use MLANG.DLL) Font substituted if glyph not available Word modifies font settings in the document Other apps do only at display time Insert Symbol dialog (Unicode 3.1 support)


Office Users Benefit: Office Users Benefit Single binary world-wide Shared world-wide file formats Multilingual word/data processing Unicode HTML Unicode e-mail (HTML, RTF, plain)


Single Binary: Single Binary Easier to deploy, administer One set-up image to install world-wide One set of service packs for all machines All features available in all “versions” Still have local version packages Multilingual users can use “foreign” features User Interface language is configurable Your language follows you when you travel Major cost savings for customers Less testing of corporate solutions Lower internal tech support costs


Single File Format: Single File Format Multinational corporations use Office Need to exchange documents company-wide Office unified file formats via Unicode Word95 had 7 different file formats Word97 had 1 file format but no editing, layout for languages covered by other versions Word2000 adds editing, layout, and full-roundtrip Word2002 adds full complex script support


Multilingual Usage: Multilingual Usage English Officexp: input/display/edit/layout of European languages any similar left-right scripts if fonts/NLS available E.g. Canadian Syllabics (Inuktitut), Ethiopic, Cherokee Some combining diacritic support (African languages) East Asian languages Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Japanese, Korean, Yi Hong Kong supplemental characters, CNS 11643, GB-18030 (via UTF-16 “surrogates”) Complex Script and Bi-directional scripts (need enabled system) Arabic (incl. Farsi, Urdu), Hebrew Thai Hindi, Tamil, Oriya, Telugu, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati, etc.


Multilingual Usage: Multilingual Usage Most documents are monolingual Most users are bilingual Local language English Optimize UI for using one, two or three languages Over 200 supported – rare usage Detect 20+ languages while typing (Word) Automatically install and use the correct proofing tools Plain text I/O in any encoding (Word, Excel) Includes GB18030 on properly configured system


Multilingual Word Processing: Multilingual Word Processing Proofing tool interfaces are Unicode SDKs available for 3rd party development Tools for over 35 languages available European languages, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Hindi… Spelling, Grammar, Hyphenation, Thesaurus Traditional/Simplified Chinese conversion Japanese character usage consistency checker Hangul/Hanja conversion Translation dictionaries (available offline) Automatic translation web services


Multilingual Data Processing: Multilingual Data Processing Access databases are Unicode Hook up to SQL7.x/2000 Unicode databases Excel workbooks are Unicode Hook up to Unicode databases using OLE-DB Create Pivot lists and manipulate Unicode data PowerPoint creates multilingual multimedia Web sites, animations


Web sites: Web sites URLs transmitted in UTF-8 (before the “?”) FrontPage Create and edit web pages in Unicode Word WYSWYG Web pages Save in full or “filtered” HTML IE5.x, IE6 Display Unicode 3.1 pages


Mail and PIM: Mail and PIM Outlook Send/receive mail in any encoding Use Word to edit mail for richest experience


Unicode HTML: Unicode HTML HTML is a companion file format Roundtrip all formatting Optional HTML Filter cuts file size for publishing Save to web servers directly Roundtrip Unicode data in any encoding UTF-8 and UTF-16 are supported too HTML is tagged with encoding


Unicode e-mail: Unicode e-mail Office2000/XP provides fully multilingual email HTML mail uses internet standards All Unicode content preserved Plugs into Outlook, Exchange Use Word to compose replies and new messages Send in plain text, RTF, or HTML All applications can mail documents as HTML


Future Directions: Future Directions Help Windows build a worldwide platform Ensure system support is useful to app writers Unicode 3.1 languages too Extend Unicode support to more apps Outlook Combining diacritics, OpenType support


Microsoft Word2002from Officexp running on Windowsxp : Microsoft Word2002 from Officexp running on Windowsxp Demo


Questions: Questions Answers