How to open a .docx file
Word document · Document
A .docx file is a Word document. LibreOffice, ONLYOFFICE and Google Docs all open it for free. If Word says it is corrupt, the file is a ZIP internally and can often be repaired.
What a .docx file actually is
DOCX arrived with Office 2007 and replaced the old binary .doc. Despite appearances it is not a single file: it is a ZIP archive containing XML documents, images and styles, defined by the Office Open XML standard.
Knowing that changes what you can do when one breaks. A damaged .docx is often a damaged ZIP, and its text usually survives inside word/document.xml even when Word refuses to open it.
Why it will not open
Two situations dominate. Either no word processor is installed, which is increasingly common on a fresh machine, or Word reports the file is corrupt because the download truncated or the archive structure was damaged.
Renaming it to an extension you can open will not help: changing the extension does not convert the file, it only changes what Windows tries to open it with.
Step by step
Windows
- 01Install LibreOffice or ONLYOFFICE, both free, and open the file.
- 02Or upload it to Google Docs or Microsoft 365 in a browser and read it without installing anything.
- 03If Word says the file is corrupt: in Word, choose File, Open, select the document, then click the arrow next to Open and pick "Open and Repair".
- 04If that fails, rename a copy to .zip, open it with 7-Zip, and extract word/document.xml. The text is in there, wrapped in XML tags, and it can be recovered by hand.
macOS
- 01Pages opens .docx directly and can export back to Word format.
- 02LibreOffice is the free option with the most faithful formatting.
- 03The rename-to-zip repair trick works identically on macOS using Keka or the built-in Archive Utility.
What usually goes wrong
Formatting drifts between word processors
LibreOffice and Pages open DOCX reliably but do not reproduce every Word layout perfectly, especially with complex tables, tracked changes or embedded fonts. For a document that must look exactly right, export to PDF from whichever program created it.
Programs that open .docx
Our pick, in order. Every one links to the publisher's official download URL and the SHA-256 hash of the installer. Once you have downloaded it, you can check the file against our index before you run it.
If you end up downloading one of these from somewhere other than the publisher, what you can and cannot verify about that is worth two minutes.
- LibreOfficeLibreOffice is a free and powerful office suite, and a successor to OpenOffice.org (commonly known as OpenOffice). Its clean interface and feature-rich tools help you unleash your creativity and enhance your productivity.v26.2.5.2 · 3 hashed installers100
- ONLYOFFICE Desktop EditorsAll the tools you need to work with text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and fillable forms on Windows, Linux, and macOS.v9.4.0 · 3 hashed installers95
- calibrecalibre is the one stop solution to all your e-book needs.v9.13.0 · 1 hashed installer100
Common questions
- How do I open a .docx file without Microsoft Word?
- LibreOffice Writer and ONLYOFFICE both open DOCX for free on Windows, macOS and Linux. Google Docs and the free web version of Microsoft 365 do it in a browser with nothing installed.
- How do I repair a corrupt .docx file?
- In Word use File, Open, then the arrow next to the Open button and choose "Open and Repair". If that fails, rename a copy to .zip, extract it, and recover the text from word/document.xml, since a DOCX is a ZIP archive internally.
- What is the difference between .doc and .docx?
- DOC is the old proprietary binary format from Word 97 to 2003. DOCX is the Office Open XML format introduced in 2007: a ZIP of XML files, which is smaller, better documented and far easier to recover when damaged.