Support of .DOC and .DOCX in Word 2003 Used in Windows 10

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I have a friend who has Window 10 but only has Office 2003. Word 2003 is a ways back in my memory. Apparently Word 2003 doesn’t with .DOC or .DOCX according to my friend. I remember that Word 2003 did not support .DOCX but there was a ‘fix’ to make it work. But that was in the days of Win XP and Win 7. Does that sound right? The bottom line is can one make Word 2003 with both .DOC or .DOCX?

don332

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Your friend needs to download/install the Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats. (This is the download link.)

Hope this helps…

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I have a friend who has Window 10 but only has Office 2003. Word 2003 is a ways back in my memory. Apparently Word 2003 doesn’t with .DOC or .DOCX according to my friend. I remember that Word 2003 did not support .DOCX but there was a ‘fix’ to make it work. But that was in the days of Win XP and Win 7. Does that sound right? The bottom line is can one make Word 2003 with both .DOC or .DOCX?

don332

Right, Office 2003 back to Office 2000 needs that Compatibility Pack to be able to use .docx and .xlsx files. That ability came about with the release of Office 2007. The .doc and .xls were and are native to Office. A note: Office 2010 is the first version to become available as either 32-bit or 64-bit.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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Apparently Word 2003 doesn’t with .DOC or .DOCX according to my friend.

So, this is wrong. DOC is the original Word file format, it goes way, way, WAY back! It is the native (default) file format for Word 2003, and it doesn’t matter whether you use Word in Windows 10 or not. The Windows 10 detail is not relevant here.

Word 2007 introduced the DOCX format and from this version onwards, DOCX is the native (default) file format for Word. However, DOC is still fully supported, all the way up to and including Word 2016. You may find the odd feature that you cannot save in a DOC file that you can save in an DOCX file, but this is rare in my experience. Word issues a scary warning every time but this is a generic warning with no functionality behind it. Word issues the scary warning without checking that your document actually has incompatible features in it.

Berton nailed the description of the Compatibility Pack. Microsoft back-ported the DOCX capability to Word 2003 with the Compatibility Pack.

Thus, Word 2003 without the Compatibility Pack, fully supports DOC files. There is literally no way you can have, get or use Word 2003 that it does not know all about the DOC format. Add the Compatibility Pack and Word 2003 also fully supports DOCX files.

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You may find the odd feature that you cannot save in a DOC file that you can save in an DOCX file, but this is rare in my experience. Word issues a scary warning every time but this is a generic warning with no functionality behind it. Word issues the scary warning without checking that your document actually has incompatible features in it.

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The only nit I would pick with your response is that I often use Content Controls and the Text effects from Word 2010. So, for me, the warning is meaninful. Obviously, for the original poster, from Word 2003, the warning would be meaningless. InWord 2003 none of these features will be available.

The .doc format is less robust (more prone to problems) than is the .docx format.

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