[3] A Mac OS equivalent, Microsoft Office 98 Macintosh Edition, was released on January 6, 1998.

[5] Office 97 introduced "Command Bars", a paradigm in which menus and toolbars are made more similar in capability and visual design.

It also featured natural language systems and sophisticated grammar checking.

Office 97 is the first Microsoft product to include product activation, albeit limited to the Brazilian editions of Office 97 Small Business Edition and Publisher.

[6] Two Office 97 applications feature easter eggs: a hidden pinball game in Microsoft Word and a hidden flight simulator in Microsoft Excel.