WPS Office (an acronym for Writer, Presentation and Spreadsheets, previously known as Kingsoft Office) is an office suite for Microsoft Windows, Linux, iOS and Android OS, developed by Zhuhai-based Chinese software developer Kingsoft. WPS Office is a suite of software which is made up of three primary components: WPS Writer, WPS Presentation, and WPS Spreadsheet.
The personal basic version is free to use. A fully featured professional-grade version is also available for a subscription fee. The current version of WPS Office is WPS Office 2016.
The product has had a long history of development and success in China under the name "WPS" and "WPS Office". For a time, Kingsoft branded the suite under "KSOffice" in an attempt to gain an international market foothold, but has since returned to "WPS Office". Since WPS Office 2005, the user interface is similar to that of Microsoft Office products, and supports Microsoft document formats besides native Kingsoft formats.
Since its development, WPS Office has grown to huge popularity and successes among Microsoft Windows, Android, iOS and Linux, a high-performing and cheaper alternative to Microsoft Office.
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History
Pre-history
WPS Office initially started as Super-WPS?????? (Super-WPS Word Processing System, then known simply as WPS) debuted in 1988 as a word processor which ran on DOS systems and sold by then HONGKONG KINGSUN COMPUTER CO., LTD.. It was the first Chinese word processor designed and developed for China mainland market. WPS retained a large user base throughout the late 1980s and mid-1990s before Microsoft Word 95 and Windows 95 became popular.
Early history
Faced with competition from Microsoft Office, Kingsoft chief software architect Pak Kwan Kau (???) diverted 4 million RMB from his personal account to assist in the development of WPS 97 for Microsoft Windows. In 1997, WPS 97 was released. The next version, WPS 2000, was released two years later. Both products were developed for a 16-bit Windows platform, with the capability of running on 32-bit Windows platforms.
In May 2001, Kingsoft launched a full office suite under the name "WPS Office 2001", which contained a word processor, together with spreadsheet and presentation applications. With WPS Office 2001, Kingsoft entered the office productivity market in the People's Republic of China.
In 2002, WPS Office 2002 was released, succeeding WPS Office 2001 as the flagship version of WPS Office and adding an email client to the office suite. WPS Office 2002 maintained interface compatibility with established office products, and as a result dramatically reduced the time needed for users to learn the interface of WPS Office.
In 2003, WPS Office 2003 was released. Individuals already familiar with Microsoft Office found little difficulty transitioning to it. The Chinese government made Kingsoft office software the standard for various divisions of the government.
The 2004 incarnation of the office suite, dubbed WPS Office Storm, was released in late 2004 to minimal fanfare. In its increased effort to compete with Microsoft Office, WPS Office Storm claimed to offer total compatibility with the Microsoft Office file formats. Unlike previous versions, WPS Storm was based on OpenOffice.org, and was the first to support operating systems aside from Microsoft Windows. In an attempt to differentiate itself from other office suites, Kingsoft collaborated with Intel and IBM to integrate their text-to-text and text-to-speech technology into WPS Office Storm. These new features became the focal point in Kingsoft advertising campaigns.
In late 2005, WPS Office 2005 was released with a revamped interface and a smaller file size. Besides the Professional edition, a free-of-charge edition was offered, in the hopes of attracting more users. The personal edition was only available in Simplified Chinese, licensed only to students and home users. A Wine-hosted edition was also provided for Linux users of WPS Office Storm.
In 2007, Kingsoft Office 2007 was released. Compared to previous products, this was the first version trying to enter international markets, with support for English and Japanese, besides native Chinese, for which it is still called WPS Office.
In 2009, Kingsoft Office 2009 was released. It had increased compatibility with Microsoft Office including support for the 2007 version file formats.
In 2010, Kingsoft Office 2010 was released.
In 2011, Kingsoft Office was granted funding from the Chinese government and received further orders from central ministries in China.
Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012 was released in 2011. Kingsoft Office Professional 2012 and Kingsoft Office Standard 2012 were released for sale in February 2012, in addition to Kingsoft Office for Android.
On 28 March 2012 Kingsoft announced that WPS for Linux was under development. It is the third WPS Linux product, following WPS Storm and WPS 2005. It was developed from scratch, based on the Qt framework, re-implementing its Windows counterpart as best possible.
Kingsoft Office 2013 was released on 4 June 2013. Both the free and paid 2013 Office software were released on the same day. The new version consists of three programs, Writer, Spreadsheets and Presentation, similar to MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint, with consistent focus on business and home users. WPS for Linux Alpha 18 Patch 1 was released on 11 June 2015.
Today
June 6, 2014, Kingsoft Office was changed to WPS Office. All Kingsoft Office products, both paid and free, have been changed to WPS Office.
June 21, 2016, WPS Office Software for Windows, has announced general availability of the company's new Freemium, or sponsored access, version of its flagship product. WPS Office had previously allowed free use of the software, but with restricted functionality. With the Freemium model, users now have full access to all of WPS Office's features and functionality with no subscription needed.
Versions and subscription model
On December 16, 2014, WPS Office 2014 for Windows, build 9. 1. 0. 4932, was released as a subscription model requiring a monthly charge of $3/month for some features. The free version provided basic features and supported Microsoft Office doc, xls, and ppt file formats. Premium paid versions provided full compatibility for Microsoft Office files. Supposedly, the 2014 free version removed the feature to save docx, xlsx, and pptx files that was included in the 2013 free version, and required the premium version for this support, however the program still allowed for these file types to be saved.
A free edition of WPS Office 2016 is available for home and non-commercial use. Previously, after 30 days the program created a watermark on all printed documents.
The WPS Office 10 Business Edition is offered either as an annual licensed version for $49. 99, or as a one-time-payment lifetime license for $79. 99. However it is not openly shown on the web site that these are only available when the freely-downloaded Personal Edition of the program prompts you to upgrade after 30 days and directs you to the purchase page of the office suite for payment.
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File format
.wps is the file extension used for Kingsoft Writer Documents. This extension was also used by Microsoft Works. The format is similar to a Microsoft Word document (.DOC or. DOCX file) and supports formatted text, images, and advanced page formatting. Kingsoft Writer documents can be converted to Microsoft Word *.doc files in the software.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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