Language Differences Across Versions of Word

The Microsoft Word Developer's Kit documents the WordBasic programming language for the following versions of Microsoft Word:

• Microsoft Word versions 6.0, 6.0a, and 6.0c for Windows (referred to as Microsoft Word version 6.0 for Windows)
• Microsoft Word version 6.0 for the Macintosh
• Microsoft Word version 6.0 for Windows NT
• Microsoft Word for Windows 95 (referred to as Microsoft Word version 7.0)

All these versions of Word share a majority of WordBasic's functionality. However, there are a handful of differences in WordBasic between each version. For example:

• Word version 6.0 for the Macintosh cannot run statements such as AppActivate and AppSendMessage that rely on Windows features, while the Windows versions of Word cannot run statements such as EditPublish and EditSubscribe that rely on Macintosh features.
• None of the versions of Word earlier than Word version 7.0 can run statements and functions for Word features that were added to Word for Windows 95.
• In Word version 6.0 for Windows NT and Word version 7.0, the arguments for GetPrivateProfileString$() and SetPrivateProfileString changed to allow setting and returning values in the registry.

The following sections list these and other differences in detail. You can use this information along with the cross-platform programming guidelines in Chapter 9, "More WordBasicTechniques," (Part 1, "Learning WordBasic") to develop WordBasic macros that run without error in any version of Word listed earlier.