Word 97—Programmability

VBA in Word

This is the first time that Word hosts VBA, a full featured, professional programming language. VBA replaces WordBasic. Word 97 is now an automation controller for the first time. In addition, Word has a full featured development environment, identical to PowerPoint and Excel.

VB 4.0+ capabilities

The tool set offered with VBA is an incremental improvement over the Visual Basic 4.0 environment, optimized for Office documents, and is the basis of Visual Basic 5.0. Developers will benefit from a robust, full featured IDE (integrated development environment), with excellent tools and support for developing custom document solutions.

Consistent across Office

A consistent programming model across Office applications means users only need to learn one way of programming and can apply their learning across applications. VBA also has a true event model. It includes built in support for most commonly requested WordBasic features. Word users are exposed to a great programmatic interface and Word can now control other applications using OLE automation.

Store code in templates or documents

Now get self-contained, fully independent transportable documents – macros stored within documents means that you no longer have to deliver templates along with documents to provide access to macros.

Don't be so open-minded your brains fall out.