Open DOCX without Using Word: Different Ways to Read Documents

Office is one of the essential programs that we must have on any computer. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other office programs are part of the daily life of most of the users who work with the computer. Surely we all know the DOCX format , the format in which all documents that we write in Word are saved by default. These DOC files can be opened without problems on any computer that has Office or Microsoft‘s word processor installed. However, what happens if we don’t have the Microsoft suite on the PC?

We are going to tell you about a series of alternatives that we can use in case we have to open this type of document without having to depend on the Microsoft suite.

What is DOCX

DOCX is the default format for the documents we create with Word , the Office word processor. This format is based on the characteristics of the XML markup language, and began to be used as of Office 2013, becoming the successor to the now classic and obsolete DOC. This new format brought with it a series of improvements over the previous format, among which we can highlight:

Performance and file size. DOCX is much better optimized than DOC and can be compressed.
Integrity functions that allow us to recover and repair a file in case it is damaged.

DOCX files can be opened with any version of Word, from 2013 onwards. In addition, for the old versions, there is a compatibility plugin that allows us to open it, for example, with 2010. Furthermore, there are many other ways to open these documents without Word or any other Microsoft program. We leave you the most interesting ways to do it.

Online alternatives for opening DOCX documents

The following options will allow us to open Word documents online, that is, without the need to install any program on our PC, only our web browser.

Word online

Office, in addition to the office suite that we install on our computer, also has its own office suite in the cloud. Office Online , also known as free Word, allows us to use Office programs for free from our browser, without installing or configuring anything.

All we need to open DOCX with Word online is to have a Microsoft Account. Office online offers us 15 GB of storage totally free to upload everything we want to the cloud. We can drag any document from our PC to upload it to OneDrive, and once in the cloud, open it directly with Word online.

The best thing about this alternative is compatibility. Everything we do in Office on PC will be fully compatible with Office online. Therefore, documents will open perfectly with this cloud program.

We can access Word online from here .

Google Docs / Google Drive

Google Docs is the office suite that we can find within Google Drive . Just by having a Google account we will be able to have 15 GB of storage in the cloud, a space where we can upload all kinds of files and documents without problems. Google Cloud can open Word DOCX files that we upload to it with no problem, and it will be able to open them, although there may be some loss of style when doing so from the cloud due to compatibility issues.

Once we log in, what we must do is drag the DOC or DOCX file from the computer to the browser window to upload it to the cloud. Once uploaded, we can open it by clicking on it, using the Google Documents program directly from the browser.

We can access the Google cloud from here .

Online Document Viewer

Online Document Viewer is a simple web platform that allows us to easily open and share any document over the Internet. Unlike the two previous options, this website does not offer us an office suite with which to create documents, but its objective is simpler: to open a series of files from the browser without having to install additional software.

This website can not only open DOC and DOCX files, but also supports XLS / XLSX (Excel), PPT / PPTX (PowerPoint), PDF, PSD and many more. We must upload our documents to the web, and from there we can open them directly. This platform will allow us to make annotations, searches and even print the documents. We can also share them with other people safely.

We can access this website from the following link . All its functions are totally free.

Programs to open DOCX files

If what we want is to open the documents from our PC, but without resorting to Microsoft software, we can use other office suites that will allow us to do this.

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is probably the best alternative to Microsoft Office that we can find. A totally free and open source suite that brings us a word processor, a spreadsheet program and a slide software with which we can satisfy all our office automation needs without paying a single euro.

LibreOffice programs typically use their own open file format, Open Document. However, they have a compatibility layer that allows us to both open and save in DOC and DOCX, Microsoft Word formats. Thus, we will be able to easily open Word documents with LibreOffice, and save them in its format to be able to open them with Word (or another similar program) on any PC.

We can download LibreOffice from here . Of course, it must be taken into account that, although it has improved from version 7, DOCX support is not perfect, and the style may be broken.

OpenOffice

OpenOffice is the original project that LibreOffice was based on. This office suite is owned by Oracle and is being developed and maintained by Apache. Broadly speaking, it is the same as The Document Foundation suite, only older and with worse support. Your word processor, in addition to using its own open format, is also capable of opening documents that have been created with other processors without too much trouble.

We can download OpenOffice for free from the following link . Being an older suite than the previous one, compatibility with Word and other Microsoft Office programs leaves something to be desired.

WPS Office

WPS Office is another free office suite (although not open source) that we can use to open all kinds of Office files without having to go through Microsoft’s ring. This program is characterized by having excellent compatibility with both DOC and DOCX and other Microsoft Office formats, being, therefore, a very important alternative for those who need more precision than what LibreOffice offers.