HYGEN Blog

Convert .docx to .doc

December 31st, 2007 | by admin |

I have recently been getting quite a few documents by email from clients that use the .docx extension and found out that I am on the receiving end of a bitter Microsoft ploy to take over the office software market by brute force!

Microsoft is upsetting the whole world again. This time it is the introduction of the .docx format which most people will not be able to open unless they have the latest version of Microsoft Office / Word.

It seems that the latest version of Microsoft’s overpriced, overweight, under performing, insecure office suite defaults to save in .docx format. Great job! Linux users have a few options to try and read these documents but it is not 100% reliable yet and requires a fair amount of tinkering with OpenOffice (That good FREE office suite that everyone should be using).

For the time being, until OpenOffice manages to add .docx support out of the box, you may find it easier to use an online .docx converter, that will convert .docx to .doc for you and send the documents to your email.

I had the best results by using this websites online conversion service:

http://www.zamzar.com/

A few other sites seem to offer the service too, but are charging money – $5.00!

Microsoft OOXML Nightmare

I’m not sure how the fight is going against the so called OOXML (Or some S*** like that), but if the usual corruption prevails then governments will no doubt adopt it.

NO OOXML (Malaysia)

Sign your name and email here to protest the adoption of Microsoft’s “OOXML” standard…

No OOXML (Global Site)

Setup .docx Support For OpenOffice On Linux (Novell)

Finally, if you are lucky enough to be using the Novell version of OpenOffice on Linux you can try out these fixes -

http://download.novell.com/SummaryFree.jsp?buildid=ESrjfdE4U58~

Once you have had a look at that page from Novell you can check out this page on tips on how to setup the ODF converter -

http://www.sigmundvoid.com/?p=81

Please Don’t Use The Microsoft Office .docx File Format

By using this format you are alienating yourself in incompatibilities. OOXML is not truely open as is OpenOffice’s standard file formats. It is also apparently very badly made. If you want to send out documents, then consider using the standard .doc extension, Adobe PDF or even plain text files.

If you recently purchased Microsoft Office, consider returning it to the shop where you bought it and getting your $300 + cash refunded back. You can download OpenOffice for free from http://www.openoffice.org or if you like to pay money, you can buy a copy – for example the “Star Office” version.

September 2009 Update!

The information on this page has not been updated or checked in a while – there may or may not be new solutions available for working with / converting .docx files.