3 free ways to open Word documents without Office
Yesterday my father rang me wanting some help with opening a Microsoft Word document. He didn’t have Microsoft Office installed, there was no way he was going to pay up to $229 to buy it and to cap it all, he’d never even used a word processor before. I shuddered at the challenge that lay ahead of me but to my pleasant surprise, within 10 minutes I’d taught him how to open, edit, save and even send the document by e-mail - and all without having to have Microsoft Office or Word installed on his computer. If my dad can do it, anyone can and so here’s 3 ways that you can do the same:
1. Google Docs
If you’ve received the document by e-mail, download it, go to Google Docs and upload it. Note that you’ll need to sign-up for a Google Account first.
Simply browse to the file you want to upload and it will open automatically in Google Docs.
From there you can edit it in much the same way as you can in Word and send it by e-mail directly from your Gmail account.
2. Open Office
Download the free Open Office suite and you can open documents in Writer.
This method offers you far more editing power than Google Docs although because it requires downloading and setting-up the suite, is marginally more lengthy and complicated. However, when Open Office is installed, you’ve got yourself a fully functional Office suite that’s comparable to MS Office absolutely free!
3. Microsoft Word Viewer 2003
This is a purely viewing only software offered for free by Microsoft which enables you to open Word documents but not edit them. This is fine if all you want to do is read a document but don’t need to fill in any details, change it or basically edit it in any way.
Posted at 8:48 pm on Nov 7th
[…] 3 free ways to open Word documents without Office […]
Posted at 3:30 am on Nov 8th
Nice post. Clear and easy to follow. Thanks. I had forgotten about “Open Office” and am going to download it now. Cheers.
Posted at 5:41 am on Nov 9th
can u get the word viewer 2003 without installing windows?
thanks
Posted at 10:24 pm on Nov 9th
Thanks for the comments Newtronbom
Marzug, I’m afraid Word Viewer 2003 won’t work without Windows - Microsoft have to get you in somehow
Posted at 6:19 am on Nov 10th
Just to let you know for mac there is also Neo Office great program as weel, like open office
Posted at 5:36 pm on Nov 10th
I’ve been using open office for about a year, and I think its great. I use it for the reason you stated in your article, to open MSoffice and other older formats. Best of all, Open Office is free.
Posted at 1:14 am on Nov 11th
Thanks for the tip Vic - I’ll be taking a closer look at Neo Office later.
Posted at 8:48 am on Nov 13th
thanx
Posted at 6:01 am on Nov 15th
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Posted at 8:06 pm on Nov 18th
[…] Cosas Muy Poco Importantes Just another WordPress.com weblog « Hackea redes Wi-Fi protegidas Tres formas de abrir documentos de word sin el office Noviembre 18, 2008 Una mayoría (para no parecer exagerado doy datos aproximados) de los documentos que se propagan en todo Internet están en formato PDF, pero, si se desea tener documentos modificables, por lo general se usa el formato de MS Word, con extensión Doc o Docx. Fuente: http://en.onsoftware.com/3-free-ways-to-open-word-documents-without-office/ […]