Sunday, May 14, 2006

Lead programmer of Microsoft Word, Joe Friend, wrote on his blog that the upcoming version of Microsoft Word (which will be a part of Microsoft Office 2007 suite) will have blog editing and publishing functions.

Friend said: “When I write a blog post using my blog providers web-based editor I miss some of the familiar Word features that I’ve come to rely on, specifically background spelling (those little red squiggles) and autocorrect. These features keep me from making stupid mistakes.”

Friend also said that Word 2007 will not generate unnecessary HTML code. “Bold become <strong>, Italic becomes <em>, Heading 1 become <h1>, Quotes become <blockquote> and on it goes.”

Previously, critics of Microsoft Word’s HTML generation capabilities held that the application generated unneeded and bulky HTML code.

Graphic files that users would use in blog entries will be converted to the PNG format, which includes support for alpha channel (i.e. partial) transparency.

To create new or publish post, there will be three mouse-clicks: to create File ? New… ? New Blog Post); to publish File ? Publish ? Blog.