Internet Assistant Overview

November 1995

Internet Assistant for Microsoft® Word is an add-on to Microsoft Word that allows users to create and edit Web documents directly from Microsoft Word. The current version of Internet Assistant (version 2.0z) supports the English, French, German, and Italian versions of Word for Windows® 95 and Word 6.0 for Windows NT™.

With Internet Assistant, users can author documents for the World Wide Web with no HTML (hypertext markup language) or Internet experience. Internet Assistant converts Word documents automatically to HTML, preserving standard formatting elements such as lists, headings, and bold/italic formatting. It also provides a special template for adding hyperlinks, definitions, forms, preformatted text, and other HTML elements. If you wish to include HTML elements that are not directly supported by the Internet Assistant template, you can use the HTML Markup option, which allows you to include native HTML codes in your document.

Internet Assistant provides the following features:

Familiar authoring and editing environment. Internet Assistant uses Word as an authoring and editing environment, thus providing automatic formatting, spell checking, and correction features that facilitate and speed up authoring tasks.

Automatic file conversion. You can create a Web document from a Word document simply by using the Save As command from Word's File menu, and choosing the HTML file format.

Full HTML level 2.0 support. When you use the HTML.DOT template provided with Internet Assistant, standard Word formats such as bold/italic formatting, bulleted lists, numbered lists, and headings are converted to the appropriate HTML tags.

Support for additional HTML elements. You can insert HTML level 2+ elements into your document using the HTML Markup command from the Insert menu. These elements are passed unaltered to your HTML document.

Beyond HTML. If you'd like to preserve multiple columns, text-wrapping features, OLE 2.0 embedded objects, and other Word features that HTML doesn't support, you can publish your document with Microsoft Word Viewer, which preserves Word's native format.

Hyperlinks. You can create links between Word documents on the Internet, on a local network, or on your hard drive. To create a link, you select the HyperLink command from the Word Insert menu, then choose a destination document, URL, or bookmark.

Integrated editing and Web browsing. Internet Assistant gives you three different ways to view and edit your document. These options are available through menu commands and toolbar buttons.

Protocols supported. Internet Assistant supports HTTP, FTP, and Gopher file transfer formats. It does not support electronic mail, TELNET, USENET news groups, or WAIS.

For detailed instructions on authoring or converting documents, see the Internet Assistant Web siteinternet link. © 1996 Microsoft Corporation