Perhaps we can say that Microsoft Word is the second most popular program on most modern personal computers. The first place is occupied by the well-known Paint. 90% of all computer users use Word daily for studying, working, writing letters, poetry, personal diaries and many other important matters. However, no matter how strange it may seem, there are still people who are not familiar with the doc format. How to open it and how to work with it? They have no idea about this, but this is not at all evidence of their incompetence. Most likely, they are either unfamiliar with computers and have never encountered electronic text documents of this format, or their operating system does not support Microsoft products.

Doc - text documents created using Microsoft Word. New program Microsoft Word 2007 works both with the docx format, which is completely new and cannot be opened in previous versions of the program without updating, and with the doc format. You already roughly understand how to open it. Microsoft Word of any version allows you not only to open a file of this format, but also to read it, edit it, format it, and insert tables, images, graphs, and diagrams into a text document. All changes can be saved by clicking on the floppy disk icon or the “File” menu button and selecting the “Save” line.

There may also be another problem with the doc format. How can I open it if Office is not installed on my computer? Paint program, which was mentioned above, is installed by default on all personal computers with Windows operating system. And the Word program is included in Microsoft package Office is paid program. Not everyone can afford it.

How to open a doc file?

How to open a document in doc format if it was sent to you by mail or you downloaded it from the Internet and you urgently need to read or edit it, but you don’t have Word? There is no need to panic or worry. There are other free programs and services on the Internet that allow you to open a doc and edit it.

Online services

To open a text document in doc format, you can use online services that are completely free. And you, in addition, do not have to install additional software on your computer software. This is especially important if you practically never work with text documents. One example for opening a file with a doc extension is Google service Docs. This free service allows you to open and edit Microsoft files Word. To use the service, just register an account with Google system.

Format readersdoc

If you need to work with doc files all the time, but for various reasons you cannot install Microsoft Word, you can install a program for a friend to read this format. Below we will introduce you to the most popular programs.

Word Viewer

This Microsoft development program allows you to view doc documents, copy information from a document, and paste it into another document. It also allows you to print data from this text document. But Word Viewer has one significant drawback - you cannot edit the document.

OpenOffice

This free package of various programs works on many operating systems and makes it possible not only to read doc files, but also to edit them. The program has all the same functions as Microsoft Word.

This program is also free and allows you to work with doc format. It has quite a wide range of functionality, but is still inferior to OpenOffice.

Now, if you come across a document with it, you already know. You have many options, and what you decide to choose depends on your preferences and capabilities. But don't despair if you are unable to install the full MO 2007 package.

More than a year has passed since the release of the Office suite for Windows, but users still have questions about this program. One of the most important ones is whether it is possible to open a document in *.doc format without installing a set of applications?

WordPad and Notepad, which are initially pre-installed on Windows, are not exactly the tools that could be useful when editing documents. As you probably know, none of these programs support working with documents created in the program Office Word.

In this regard, if you often download various Word documents from the Internet and have not installed Microsoft Office Word on your PC, that is, several third party applications, which can help you open Word documents without any hassle or license purchases.

Options?

For example, you can use the free office suite OpenOffice (or). It can also open and edit Office documents. You can open files from Word, Excel and PowerPoint in the browser Google Chrome, but you need to install the extension - Chrome Office Viewer.

But, you need to understand that the list is not limited to these methods. You can even open the web version of the Microsoft tool for viewing and editing Word documents, provided that there is Microsoft account. In addition to this, Microsoft offers free program Word Viewer for quickly opening Word documents on a PC without Office installed.

The only problem with the Word Viewer program is the lack of support for documents created in Word 2010 and Word 2013. In other words, the utility is only compatible with *.doc files and is not able to open *.docx format. To expand functionality, you need to download and install an additional one to add support *.docx.

Note: You must manually download and install this Office Compatibility Pack after Word installation Viewer to add support for the latest extensions.

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By installing Word Viewer and the New Office Format Compatibility Pack, you can open .txt, .docx, .rtf, .docm, .htm, .html, .doc, .wpd, and .xml files.

Please note that Word Viewer cannot be used to edit Word documents. It can only be used to open documents, print and copy information from them. You will have to install Office Word or some other third party program, such as OpenOffice, for full editing of Word documents. Alternatively, you can work on the web version of Office Word.

If you need a program to open PowerPoint or Excel files, download and install similar programs from the Microsoft website.

In the process of working with documents, we often have to work with various types of document formats. In this short note, we will analyze the known formats, as well as how and with what tools the user can open them.

doc format

Files with the doc extension are short for the English document. Microsoft used this format for Word word processor files up to and including version 2003. Today, doc can be opened with either a modern word processor Word or outdated versions. You can also open doc with a word processor from the free package office programs Open Office, or online services working with text files such as Office Online and Google Docs.

docx format

The doc format was in many ways inconvenient to work with due to its instability, especially in terms of compatibility with different versions Word. In 2007, with the release of Office 2007, Microsoft made it the main working format for its word processor. Word format docx, or Open Office XML.

The docx format is the native format for the word processor Word starting from version 2007, respectively, you can open docx in Word 2007, 2010 or 2013. In fact, you can open docx in the old 2000 - 2003 version of Word, however, for this you will have to install a special add-on from Microsoft website - Compatibility Pack.

Compatibility Pack lets you open more than just files docx format in Word versions lower than 2007, but also xlsx spreadsheet files in the outdated spreadsheet Excel processor(2000 - 2003), as well as pptx format in outdated PowerPoint.

rtf format

This so-called “rich text format” is a cross-platform text storage format, but unlike the txt format, it allows you to store pictures in a document. The question "How to open rtf?" should not occur, because Almost any word processor can work with it. For example, on Windows systems, the free WordPad will cope perfectly with the task of opening rtf format.

txt format

The simplest format for saving text. It is often associated with Notepad in Windows, however, text files can even be viewed file manager. IN text file txt cannot contain any pictures or other elements in principle.

PDF format

Portable Document Format or simply pdf is a cross-platform format for electronic documents. Open for reading pdf there may be countless programs, probably the most popular is Adobe Reader. Starting with the 2013 version of Word, you can not only save files in pdf format, but open them for editing. Feature of this format is that the printed text will be exactly as it appears in the pdf file. Learn more about working with pdf files V .

First of all, you need to tell us about the program Microsoft Word, which is included in the Microsoft Office suite. Using this program, you can work with doc files and carry out any operations to edit them. However, the Microsoft Office software package is paid. Therefore, to avoid possible problems and do not install a hacked version of the program; it is better to use a free alternative.

Open doc file you can use the free OpenOffice.org Writer program. The distribution of this application can be downloaded from the official website of the application. The installation procedure is the same as for any other program for the Microsoft Windows operating system.

After installing the OpenOffice.org Writer application, launch it. A dialog box will appear on the screen, prompting you to perform one of several actions. We will be interested in the button for opening a new document, next to which it will be written "Open a document". Click on this button. After this, another dialog box will appear in which you will need to specify the path to the desired folder and select the required file. Next, click the “Open” button, and the selected doc file will open. Now it can be edited.

It is worth noting that since May 2012 this application has been called .

Another free word processor is LibreOffice Writer. This editor was an offshoot of the development of OpenOffice.org Writer. Both software packages are cross-platform applications. This suggests that they will work not only under Windows, but also under Mac OS X, as well as UNIX-like operating systems.

You can also open a doc file using the program built into operating system Windows. It is called WordPad. This text editor, of course, does not reach the functionality of Microsoft programs Word, however, it has the ability to change the font and color of characters, as well as align the text. To Work with doc formats and docx can only version of WordPad for Windows 7.

To open a doc file, you can also use online services. However, you will need your computer to be connected to the Internet. Services of this kind can be found on websites live.com and docs.google.com. Both services require mandatory authorization, so before starting work you must go through the registration procedure.

If you do not need to edit the doc file and just need to open it to read this or that text information, all you need to do is download and install the free program Word Viewer. This application, like Word, was developed by Microsoft specifically for printing and reading documents.

As you can see, opening a doc file is quite simple. Moreover, for this it is not necessary to install Microsoft Word– a program for which this file format is standard. You can easily find other software on the Internet that you won’t have to pay to use. As for the capabilities of such programs, they are not at all inferior in functionality to such a powerful word processor, like Microsoft Word. We hope the information in this article will help you choose an application for opening doc files.