Office Assistant - Wikipedia
The Office Assistant is a discontinued intelligent user interface for Microsoft Office that assisted users by way of an interactive animated character which interfaced with the Office help content. It was included in Microsoft Office for Windows (versions 97 to 2003), in Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Project (versions 98 to 2003), Microsoft FrontPage (versions 2002 and 2003) and Microsoft Office for Mac (versions 98 to 2004).
The default assistant in the English version was named Clippit (commonly nicknamed Clippy), after a paperclip.[1][2] The character was designed by Kevan J. Atteberry on a Macintosh computer.[2][3] Clippit was the default and by far the most notable Assistant (partly because in many cases the setup CD was required to install the other assistants), which also led to it being called simply the Microsoft Paperclip.[4] The original Clippit in Office 97 was given a new look in Office 2000.
The feature drew a strongly negative response from many users.[5][6] Microsoft turned off the feature by default in Office XP, acknowledging its unpopularity in an ad campaign spoofing Clippit.[7] The feature was removed altogether in Office 2007 and Office 2008 for Mac, as it continued to draw criticism even from Microsoft employees.
