Its main components include Word 6.0, Excel 4.0a, PowerPoint 3.0, and Mail. Microsoft announced the product on October 17, 1993;[3] version 5.0 of Excel and version 4.0 of PowerPoint were not completed in time for inclusion in Office 4.0. As a result, Microsoft offered a coupon with every purchase of Office 4.0 to customers to freely upgrade to the newer versions of Excel and PowerPoint,[4] which were eventually released in April 1994. Microsoft's rival Lotus Software took advantage of this mishap and mocked Microsoft in advertisements of its Lotus SmartSuite.[5]Microsoft Access is included in the Professional edition of Office 4.0, which sold for US$99 extra over the standard suite.[6]
Microsoft Office 4.0 increased cohesion and consistent design between the different applications in the suite.[6][7] The Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) 2.0 ability links content between different documents. IntelliSense is another new feature for predictive automation.[8]
Microsoft Office 4.3 Professional floppy disk set
Microsoft Office 4.3 was released on June 2, 1994 as a Professional edition, containing the updated versions of Excel and PowerPoint within the suite as well as the new version 2.0 of Access.[2] The Standard edition was released as Microsoft Office 4.2 for Windows 3.1.[9] Microsoft Office for NT was released on July 3, 1994 and was the first 32-bit version of Microsoft Office and hence native for Windows NT 3.1 (i386, Alpha, MIPS and PowerPC platforms). However, the PowerPoint component remained in 16-bit.[10] The suite was superseded by Microsoft Office for Windows 95.
In September 1994, Microsoft Office 4.2 for the Macintosh (M68k and Power Macintosh platforms) was released.[11] The Macintosh version is also cohesive and now shares an identical interface with the Windows version of Office 4.x.[12] The Standard Version 4.2.1 was a maintenance release in 1995. In 1997 another updated release came with essential business tools and Microsoft Bookshelf CD-ROM reference library.[13]
System requirements
Microsoft Office 4.2 for Macintosh
A Mac OS-compatible computer equipped with a 68020 or higher processor or a PowerPC processor.