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Make Office 2007 Docs Readable Anywhere with Docx2Rtf
Posted by Kevin Purdy at 12:30 AM on January 23, 2008
Windows only: The latest editions of Microsoft Office might have made some welcome interface and functionality improvements, but the newer .docx file formats can leave your co-workers (and your other computers) struggling to open its files. Free conversion utility Docx2Rtf can take whatever Office 2007 (or OpenOffice) files, and then display them for copying or save them as Rich Text Format, the standard nearly every text editor can understand, as well as PDF if you want. The conversion isn't always perfect, due to RTF's limited special characters and images, but Docx2Rtf can make it easy to send out documents to recipients across the computer spectrum. Docx2Rtf is a free download for Windows systems only. To convert older Word documents, try using Google Docs as a go-between.
Tags: documents | featured windows download | microsoft office | microsoft word 2007 | word
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
madeinbrazil
Posted 1:34 AM 23/1/08
Recently I stumbled on a MS Office 2007 file and was able to work well with it from OpenOffice. Gotta love opensource!
madeinbrazil
muzee
Posted 2:34 AM 23/1/08
Okay ... this would've sooo great if it recognised pre-2007 versions of Word files (*.doc).. why? because it gives the opportunity to print to PDF without installing a virtual PDF printer (sucks when you're working on a non-admin account in XP :-)), and without losing formatting (like what happens when you first imort to Open Office) ... too bad ...
Anybody knows how to do this .. or get the app to do this? I tried renaming the file as .docx, but it wouldn't work :-(
muzee
ghostwind
Posted 3:34 AM 23/1/08
@muzee: renaming a doc file to .docx wont work because the new word format is essentially a zipped file container
ghostwind
Kevin Purdy
Posted 3:34 AM 23/1/08
@muzee: Right, this seems to work only with the newer .docx files, which is kind of its entire reason for existing. I initially thought it could handle older files, but I was wrong. Updated.
Kevin Purdy
forpeterssake
Posted 3:34 AM 23/1/08
Hold on, Kevin. Are you saying that Google Docs can handle .docx files? It only lists .txt, .rtf, .doc., .sxw, and .odt files. I tried to convert a .docx file a few months ago using Google Docs and Zoho Writer with no luck. I want both systems to offer .docx conversion, but I don't think they currently offer that option.
forpeterssake
mobycat
Posted 4:34 AM 23/1/08
Google Docs will NOT open a docx file.
According to OpenOffice's website, OpenOffice will NOT open them, either. It says to wait for OpenOffice 3.0.
mobycat
The Amazing Ant
Posted 4:34 AM 23/1/08
Hmm... I'll try to ignore the fact that word will let you do a "Save As" to the all-powerful *.rtf filetype... Or better yet, save it as a *.[htm/html] file and let people open it with their web browser.
The Amazing Ant
Jabapyth
Posted 4:34 AM 23/1/08
OpenOffice has a built-in "export to PDF". Yah!
Jabapyth
mobycat
Posted 4:34 AM 23/1/08
OpenOffice 2.0 will not open docx files, either. At least my version won't (and as I noted just a second ago, my google docs will not open it either).
mobycat
mobycat
Posted 4:34 AM 23/1/08
Google Docs will NOT open docx files. At least not yet.
mobycat
lmjabreu
Posted 9:57 AM 22/1/08
*has
lmjabreu
lmjabreu
Posted 9:56 AM 22/1/08
Google as also added office 2007 support in web search, view as html is available for those filetypes.
[blogs.msdn.com]
lmjabreu
docx2doc
Posted 9:55 AM 22/1/08
You can also check out www.docx2doc.com - this is a paid service ($5 for unlimited usage), but gives you this ability from any computer in the world, anytime. No need to install on client computer - simply upload your docx-file and you will get your file instantly in .doc format.
If you are concerned about privacy - this is clearly not an option, but files are (according to the owner) automatically deleted from the server every 24 hours.
docx2doc
th3n33ms
Posted 7:34 AM 23/1/08
I have Word 2007 set to automatically save everything as .doc and you can go into Save As... and pick what format you want to save it in as others have said but...
If you are stuck somewhere without Word 2007 or anything [www.zamzar.com] is a great site for converting stuff. Not only is it great for converting videos and such (.flv to whatever you want) it also has a ton of other formats you can convert to and from.
You can see the whole list at [zamzar.com] .
th3n33ms
philosopher_dog
Posted 7:34 AM 23/1/08
Yes. I agree with a previous poster who pointed out that you can do this from within Word 07. I see though that this is for folks who are stuck with the trial version of 07, which limited save options? It's surprising how slow support has been for docx. You couldn't open it until a few months ago on a PPC!
philosopher_dog
kawika
Posted 7:34 AM 23/1/08
For Macs, try Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 0.2.1 (Beta): "With the Open XML Converter, you can convert Open XML files" -- those .docx, .xlsx and .pptx files -- "to a format that is compatible with Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac and Microsoft Office v. X for Mac. You can choose to convert and open one file, or convert a large number of files." Just loaded it on a coworker's computer and it worked fine.
kawika
madeinbrazil
Posted 5:33 PM 23/1/08
Interesting, I was able to open the files perfectly well on my OpenOffice (Ubuntu at least, haven't tried it with my Windows installation).
madeinbrazil
AndrewZ
Posted 7:07 AM 23/1/08
docx2rtf works on Linux through Wine, but even on Windows, docx2rtf has difficulty with basic formatting that .RTF should be able to handle.
AndrewZ
Azeem
Posted 4:33 PM 24/1/08
It works but... no formatting is maintained. Didnt microsoft make a free word viewer available? Which you cant write with but can view files with including .docx
-Azeemkhan.info
Azeem
fotostuf
Posted 4:33 AM 1/2/08
I just recently received a docx file in an email attachment. Only having Word 2003, I assumed it could not be opened, but I wanted it on the computer for later reference. Just on a lark, I clicked on it, and guess what... it opened fine... on Pages, the Mac word processor/page layout software.
Someone please explain to me why Mac opens the file when Word can't. It just boggles the mind.
fotostuf