http://www.microsoft.com/TechNet/tnnews/features/32intast.htm (PC Press Internet CD, 03/1996)
| Updated: March 12,1996 |  Go To TechNet Home Page |
By Michael Meulemans
ABSTRACT: The new features of two Microsoft products for Windows 95 are discussed. Microsoft's 32-bit Internet Assistant (IA) 2.0 is an add-on to Word used to author and browse documents on the Internet while Word Viewer is a standalone application used to view and print documents authored in Word's native format (.DOC). Reasons for implementation and ways to obtain the software and additional information are also explained.
Introduction
IA 2.0 for Word for Windows 95 and Word Viewer for Windows 95
Conclusion
More Information
Easy-to-use, inexpensive Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) authoring and browsing tools are significantly changing the traditional World Wide Web (WWW) content paradigm. A year ago, Web content providers were compelled to hire or contract so-called 'Web Masters.' These Web gurus knew where to obtain the most robust HTML utilities, how to configure WWW platforms, and methods to author attractive homepages and media-rich content-profitable skills that were in high demand. Readily-available applications and tools like Microsoft's Internet Assistant 1.0, Word Viewer, Netscape™, Mosaic, and HTML Assistant changed the paradigm by empowering content providers to conveniently author, view, and post content from their own desktops.
Introduced last fall at COMDEX 94, Microsoft's IA 1.0 elevated Internet authoring and browsing tools a step further. With IA for Word for Windows 6.0, users were able to browse the Web and edit Web documents in one application, rather than have to switch back and forth between a browsing tool, like Mosaic, and an editing tool, like HTML Assistant. Furthermore, IA, an add-on product to Word 6.0, allowed users to create Web documents in the Word for Windows environment and file format. This was a big boost, because Word's .DOC format, unlike HTML, supports more styles, tables that are easy to create and richly formatted, text that wraps around graphics, an ability to place text anywhere on a page, and OLE 2.0 embedded objects.
Word Viewer, also introduced last year, enabled Web clients with a WWW browser, like Netscape or Mosaic, to download .DOC files to their hard drives and view or print them as Word for Windows users did.
It's no coincidence that the releases of IA 2.0 and the new Word Viewer coincide with the explosive growth of 'intranets'-internal corporate information networks containing resources such as support applets and utilities, troubleshooting articles, research libraries, and employee manuals. This piece explores IA 2.0 and Word Viewer's basic functionality and new features. It also explains how both products can be used to better manage corporate product support intranets and help desks. For detailed information on how to successfully deploy an intranet, see the article, "How to Configure a Windows NT Computer as an Internal Web Server" located in MS BackOffice and Enterprise Systems, MS Windows NT Workstation, Technical Notes on the TechNet CD.
IA 2.0 and Word Viewer are free applications designed to help Web users author and view documents on a WWW network. IA 2.0 is an add-on to Word 95 and Word for Windows NT. Word Viewer, on the other hand, is a standalone application that does not require Word. It is designed for someone who wants to view and print Word documents, but does not own any version of Word for Windows. Word Viewer can be thought of as a subset of Word because it offers only a fraction of Word's functionality: viewing and printing are enabled in Word Viewer, but document editing and formatting are not.
IA 1.0 drastically changes the HTML authoring tool model. Besides integrating browsing and editing operations into one package, IA uses a different authoring scheme. Other HTML authoring applications rely on the point-and-click markup idea: users select specific text they want formatted and click on a button that assigns a specific markup tag, <TITLE>, for example. In IA, formatting a document for the Web in HTML is simply a matter of saving the document: you choose HTML Document: (*.HTM). in the Save as type: box. IA's converter assigns the markup tags based on text styles. Concerning the authoring scheme used by other editing tools, Quentin Clark, lead tester for the IA and Word Viewer projects, suggests, "We think the 'tag assigning' paradigm is a weak one…When you send postscript to your printer do you edit it by hand? You don't create postscript or RTF [Rich Text Format] documents this way, why [should you with] HTML?"
Because IA is an add-on to Word, Web authors avoid the editing constraints of other tools and can take advantage of Word's features, such as IntelliSense™ options like AutoCorrect and AutoFormat, Spell Check, and Search and Replace.
With IA, Web authors can also use Word's document format. Word's file format (.DOC) supports features HTML does not. For example, authors can incorporate tables with OLE objects, like Excel spreadsheets, footnotes, multiple columns, and multiple fonts of varying size and color into .DOC file-formatted documents.
Finally, hyperlinking documents in IA is quick and easy. With other tools you have to enter long path names and URL addresses in confusing dialog boxes to hyperlink documents together. In IA, you click the Copy HyperLink button and a dialog box appears indicating that your hyperlink has been created (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Copy Hyperlink dialog box
Single-click hyperlinking within Word's native format encourages developers to create and authors to populate corporate web sites with Word documents. Clark feels that single-click hyperlinking takes the mystery out of linking documents together, removes the intimidation users feel about creating their own webs, and encourages information dissemination in a corporate environment:
"Easy hyperlinking opens many doors for people as far as making resources available. Imagine that my test plans for a project are authored in Word .DOC format. I have Excel tables embedded in my proposal, as well as charts and diagrams. With a single-click I can throw in a hyperlink to the product's spec…It allows me to share information in a way I wasn't able to before…Imagine this, you're sitting at your desktop with your proxy service, writing a financial proposal. You need the latest stock quotes from some Web site. From within Internet Assistant you browse there, click the Copy HyperLink button, go back to your document and choose Paste HyperLink. Another user with Internet Assistant can load this proposal and click on the hyperlink to obtain the latest stock quote information…You don't have to launch another browser to get there…It's seamless."
Note Proxy servers or 'proxies' are servers that sit on a corporate LAN and allow access to the Internet. They are typically used as firewalls for secure corporate access to the Internet.
IA 2.0 incorporates many suggestions and recommendations sent in by IA 1.0 users. In order of priority, here's a list of the top five requests users wanted to see in IA 2.0:
The biggest improvement users will immediately notice when they launch Word with IA 2.0 is IA's heightened performance as a browser. Besides being extremely robust, IA 2.0 initializes, refreshes graphics, and hyperlinks (jumps among documents) faster than version 1.0. Clark discussed some of the performance improvements:
"…we replaced our transport layer*…this greatly increases the speed, along with the fact that the product is 32-bit…In addition, the old Internet Assistant used to bring in one graphic at a time, convert it, then bring in the next graphic, download it, and convert it. Now there are asynchronous threads pulling down information as fast as it can come in…data is being converted as images download…in the end, this speeds up how fast graphics appear on-screen and how Word performs as a WWW browser."
Note *IA 2.0's transport layer is responsible for communicating with the Internet, which involves locating and retrieving WWW pages, gopher screens, and FTP files for Word.
IA 2.0 supports the center tag (<CENTER>) with a button that enables text centering. Users can also select a left-alignment button in IA 2.0's authoring template toolbar, which justifies text flush left.
Being able to instantly see the HTML markup tags was a big request of IA 1.0 users. To do this in version 1.0 you had to either open the document as Text Only in Word or save and open the document in Notepad, Mosaic or Netscape-a time-consuming process for a simple task. In IA 2.0, seeing HTML source is a matter of selecting a menu option; clicking a button returns the document to WYSIWYG format.
Background page authoring is just one of the many Netscape extensions supported in IA 2.0. It allows users to choose images or colors that make up a Web page's background. A slick UI in IA 2.0 allows users to pick their background image or color and hyperlink colors.
A new forms authoring interface, which will debut in the final version of IA 2.0, allows users with client browsers to send information back to WWW servers via e-mail.
Other features and performance enhancements Web content authors can look forward to in the final version of IA 2.0 include:
The beta version of IA 2.0 debuted Aug. 24 along with Office 95 and Windows 95. Users can obtain the IA 2.0 software for free via a fulfillment coupon that ships with Office 95. WWW aficionados can browse the Office 95 section of Microsoft's Web site: http://www.microsoft.com to obtain the software. Microsoft Network (MSN) users can find the software in the Microsoft Word 95 forum (Go MSWORD). The software is a self-extracting archive: running setup automatically installs the add-on into Word 95.
The IA 2.0 add-on has five components:
These files (INLOADER.DLL and WININET.DLL) handle all connections with the Internet.
Word Viewer is a small, free, standalone application available on two disks. Like IA 2.0, Word Viewer is available free in Microsoft's WWW site, in the Microsoft Word 95 forum in MSN, and by coupon enclosed with Office 95.
Although Word Viewer's functionality is relatively simple compared to IA 2.0, the distribution options it provides are extremely important. Clark envisions this Word Viewer situation:
"Word Viewer's mission is to provide Word users with the option to author and distribute information using the Word document file format, .DOC…Just because my business in Redmond uses Word for Windows to develop a detailed, richly-formatted business plan, doesn't mean my business partners in New York use Word…By having Word Viewer readily available and distributable on two disks I know I can handoff my plan via the Web or e-mail without having to convert my document to an inferior format."
As mentioned earlier, Word Viewer only allows .DOC file printing and viewing, not editing. Besides using Word Viewer to copy information from opened documents, you can also use it to activate OLE objects, then edit them in their native server applications and save them to separate files. For example, if you are reviewing a document in Word Viewer and happen across an Excel spreadsheet, you can double-click the spreadsheet, edit it in Excel, and save the file under a new name. You can then close the Excel object, send the updated Excel object back to the original author, and return to Word Viewer. Remember, however, that the changes you've made to the Excel object will not be saved by Word Viewer within the Word document.
Word Viewer can be used as a 'helper application' to view .DOC files posted on the Internet. To be used as an external viewer for a WWW browser, Word Viewer must be correctly registered in the browser application; consult the browser documentation for file association or setup information. Of course, Word Viewer can also be used to view .DOC files sent in e-mail. When you install Word Viewer, its setup program checks the Windows registration file to see if there are any applications associated with .DOC files. If a version of Word is not installed and no associations are found, Word Viewer Setup registers Word Viewer as the application associated with .DOC files. Double-clicking a .DOC file in Mail or File Manager then launches the Word Viewer application with the file already loaded.
The difference between .DOC and .HTM-formatted documents is an important one to consider, as Quentin Clark points out:
"…all the formatting features you have with Word and the .DOC file format are supported in Word Viewer: fonts, layout, paragraph formatting, borders, shading, drawing objects, footnotes, endnotes…For richly formatted documents the .DOC format is the document format of choice."
Clark and his team of testers and developers hope to include Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) support in a future release of Word Viewer. Presently in Word Viewer, you can not use the hyperlinks that may appear in a document. In the future, DDE would allow users to open a .DOC document icon they locate with a browser like Mosaic, view the document in Word Viewer, locate and click a hyperlink in the document, and jump to the newly loaded document in Mosaic again.
Although the new version of Word Viewer is primarily a 32-bit port of the older one, it does contain significant improvements:
The many new authoring and browsing features, performance enhancements, and heightened robustness of IA 2.0 make it the tool of choice among serious Web content providers. Likewise, choosing to author and browse the Web without having Word Viewer is like watching a 3-D movie without the special viewing glasses.
If you're a help desk manager or support administrator and are still not persuaded to try either of these applications, examine the following IA 2.0 and Word Viewer use scenarios, which highlight both products' functionality.
New wizards in the final release of IA 2.0 will help novice HTML authors get started and advanced users quickly create hierarchically-structured homepages.
Open Word, drop-down the File menu, select New, double-click the HTML.DOT template…blank screen, now what? Novice HTML authors are frequently intimidated by the blank screen, markup tags, and formatting requirements necessary to create a new HTML document. Imagine new help desk support personnel, unfamiliar with HTML markup, who discover an important support tip or workaround and wish to post this valuable resource to a corporate support homepage. A new HTML creation wizard in IA 2.0 walks a user step-by-step through the document creation process-from assigning a title to styling headings.
The TOC wizard lets advanced users easily create hierarchical Web page indexes. Clark describes how the wizard can be used:
"…let's say I authored a bunch of technical support articles and organized them by product groups under a directory in File Manager called Office. The sub-directory names would be Word, Excel, etc. Suppose I want to quickly create a Web page that maintains this hierarchical 'sub-web' organization, and incorporates hyperlinks based on the article titles…I simply start the TOC creation wizard, point to the directory, and the wizard does the rest. It gets all the document titles, makes hyperlinks out of them, and creates one page that lists everything in the 'sub-web'…I can post the page to my Web, and users have one-stop access to all of these hierarchically indexed documents, from one page…very powerful stuff from an authoring standpoint."
Forms are the vehicles for interactivity on the World Wide Web. As mentioned earlier, forms allow end users with client browsers to communicate with Web servers. They are a crucial component of electronic commerce. In a help desk environment forms can be used to provide vital support information and work order requests. Like traditional electronic forms, HTML forms can require certain information be provided by users, thereby eliminating incomplete work order requests.
IA 2.0's new forms user interface lets users create complex, detailed forms from one coherent dialog box. This feature will debut in the final version to be released in the coming months.
Increased support for batch document conversions (.DOC and .RTF-formatted documents to .HTM) helps support administrators avoid frequent updates and laborious conversions, and efficiently maintain large databases of dynamic information.
One of the Word product team's primary objectives is to, "Make Word the best tool for authoring information, whether it's ultimate destination is the printer, the fax machine, or the Internet." IA 2.0 and Word Viewer integrate tightly with Office 95 and Windows 95. Because this integration provides for common user interfaces, menus, and functionality, Internet content authoring and viewing with Word are made easier than with other third-party tools.
Both IA 2.0 and Word Viewer will be supported through Microsoft Product Support Services. Look for tools and utilities developed for both products to be made available through TechNet.
Document Location
What is MS Word Viewer and How Can Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
I Get It? Q125420
MS Word Viewer Technical White Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
Paper Q125493
Non-HTML Forms Lose Formatting Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
After Conversion to HTM (Pertains Q126245
to version 1.0 only)
Internet Assistant: How to View Raw Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
HTML Markup (Pertains to version Q126364
1.0 only)
"Intranets Fuel Growth of Internet Lawton, Stephen, Digital News &
Access Tools" Review, April 24, 1995, volume 12,
number 8, p20-22
Microsoft TechNet
Volume 3, Issue 10
October 1995
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