Clippy was one of the best-known Office assistants among users

The use of “helpers” Desk as part of the experience of programs designed by Microsoft between the years 1996 and 2004, allowed users to receive help in managing document information.

One of the most popular wasclippy”, an animated clip that was placed somewhere on the screen and finally made interactive movements and additional reminders.

The call “excerpt from Microsoft” not only provided advice when writing the document, designing a presentation or a spreadsheet, but also reacted to the Shares of the user. A click on it could generate a fun movement with which it would be possible to interact.

However, some people have considered it distracting when performing activities in files and that’s why it was disabled before starting.

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The clip, which rested on a sheet of paper and had toy-like eyes, became an icon representative of television shows. Desk and even tried to be reproduced by other programmers as an extension for the browser of Google Chromealthough it cannot be said for sure.

Clippy was one of the Microsoft assistants available to users.
Clippy was one of the Microsoft assistants available to users.

However, despite clippy have acceptance among the majority of users or concentrate the majority of memories of these older versions of the suite of Microsoft Officehe was not the only assistant available.

Some of the ones that were in the default collection were: “I laugha red dot that had a face and bounced off the screen, “Dr. Genius” which was an animated version of Albert Einsteina puzzle, “Rocky” (dog), Catulina (cat), and even Merlin, the magician.

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They weren’t the only ones, because a bunch of facility additional (by means of a CD) allowed the inclusion of others like “Natura”, an animated version of the earth, “Captain Can”, a superhero dog, “Will”, which would be the representation of william shakespeare and the “F1” robot.

Like Clippy, each helper had its own way of appearing on the screen, interacting with the user, offering help, and then leaving when the program stopped. Desk in use will close. Even before pressing the “Close” button, each participant reminded the user to save the file before exiting the program.

Desktop assistants have been placed somewhere on the screen to provide reminders and guidance.  (Microsoft)
Desktop assistants have been placed somewhere on the screen to provide reminders and guidance. (Microsoft)

Currently no version of the suite Microsoft Office offers Clippy-like assistant functionality. However, it is possible to search for specific functions at the request of the user, which the participants could offer at any time.

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This is the “What do you want to do” function which comes in the form of a search bar at the top right of the program. To use it, you just have to write the name of the function you want to apply or the action you are looking for and the bar will respond with a list of suggested or related actions.

After identifying which action is going to be used, you need to click on the option that appears on the screen for it to be performed at the user’s discretion.

In the event that it has not been identified which action is the most appropriate in the options available, an additional side section will open in the window from which you can search the web for how to perform the action.

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