First, I would like to mention some of the advantages of OpenXML file format. When you take a closer look at these files you can find that they are classic ZIP archives. Try to rename the DOCX to ZIP a see what is inside this file. There are several XML files. As an open format is DOCX (and the whole OpenXML) much more reliable. Developers are able to implement the OpenXML support without breaking up the binary format like with the classic DOC.

Moreover, there is a better chance to open damaged DOCX file. You can get its part at least.

In the first weeks and months there wasn’t any wide-known tool able to open the DOCX or XLSX files out of the MS Office 2007. However the situation has changed. We have several freeware tools to open the DOCX. There are the best known:

How to open DOCX in Office 2003?

Are you using the older version of MS Office? There is a answer for you - Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack. Yes, Microsoft offers a free add-in for Office prior to 2007 version. You can download it from Microsoft Download Center. After the installation you will be able to open and save (!) the new DOCX and XLSX file formats in MS Office 2003.

How to open DOCX in OpenOffice.org?

You are a Linux user and have to open DOCX files… Don’t worry. You don’t have to start the Wine or any kind of virtual machine with hosted Windows. Just upgrade to OpenOffice.org 3. This new version of open-source office is here for month already. OpenOffice.org support DOCX and other OpenXML format directly without the need to install any add-ins. So it is more comfortable than older MS Office in this way.

By the way, if you don’t know, OpenOffice.org is available for Linux and Windows too.

MS Word Viewer

Another option to see what’s inside the OpenXML files is to download the MS Word or MS Excel Viewer. However I don’t recommend this. There is no reason to use the simple viewers since we have the option for feature rich Office 2003 or OpenOffice.org mentioned above.

Windows 7 WordPad

There is a great news for (future) Windows 7 users. This new version of popular operating system from Microsoft will be able to open the DOCX files. It doesn’t support XLSX but using the WordPad you will be able to open the DOCX files directly. I have tried this new feature. It works, however there is one problem – WordPad is able to show you the texts from DOCX but it doesn’t support the images inside the document.

Check the differences between the document opened in Word 2007 and Windows 7 WordPad:

Do you use the OpenXML files? Do you prefer open formats or not? Let me know in comments below the article.