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Opening .docx files on your Mac

Docx. It's the new XML format for Microsoft Word. And it's incompatible with your Mac. Docx files may already be appearing in your mailbox. With deadlines and angry people sending them to you, who really just need to relax and take a vacation in the Bahamas and send you less work to do.

If you're on a Mac and you've got to deal with docx files, EightySevenFour has a great tutorial up on how to recover the text from the file.

Yes, it's more than a bit of a hack--it involves unzipping the file and stripping the text from it--but it may save your butt until a better solution comes along.

I personally haven't had the opportuntity to play with docx, but I strongly suspect that TextEdit may be able to handle the XML better than you might first think.

Do you have some DocX files around. Want to help out? Send one over to our Tips form so I can try to hack away at it myself. Thanks!



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Docx. It's the new XML format for Microsoft Word. And it's incompatible with your Mac. Docx files may already be appearing in your...
 

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Dag

docx2doc allows you to convert Word 2007 files in a simple and fast 1-2-3 process. Upload, choose target format (including doc, html, rtf and txt) and have your docs ready in 30 seconds!

February 07 2007 at 3:18 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
canna

today Panergy-software released docXConverter for MAC OS X, which convert docx to rtf. the quality of conversion is awesome, take a look at the screenshots.

you can download the trial for docXConverter from here:
http://www.panergy-software.com/buy/download.html
but the demo is good only for 20 conversions after that you have to buy it.

December 20 2006 at 6:26 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jay

Just released is "Docx Converter", to which you upload your .docx file and it converts it for you to .txt. The formatting disappears, but the text remains.

December 06 2006 at 12:56 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
PilD

Oops.
Here.
http://openxmldeveloper.org/articles/OpenXMLsamples.aspx

December 06 2006 at 8:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
PilD

Sample files to play with available here.

December 06 2006 at 8:48 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MahRain

A similar 'hack' can be used by Windows (Linux, *nix) users who stumble across a .Pages file which is also XML.

December 06 2006 at 3:13 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
rong

While I'm complaining... what's with this lame-commenting system. I posted 2 comments in a row; I replied to the first, then go back to write another comment, then replied to that and I see that it posted the first comment twice. Then I had to go back and retype the last comment only upon going to my e-mail account I see that by this time I had 3 messages total at this point. After typing this and also the second message a second time, I had 5 responses from your server total just to get those original 2 comments out of my head and onto the net.

Uggg. This is proving as difficult to work with as Microsoft is.

December 05 2006 at 10:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
rong

And what is with this stupid crap they are trying to pull by releasing a plug-in for browsers called "Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere" (WPF/E).

They are losing the browser war again so now they have to beef up their efforts?!?!

What the heck does "rich content in addition to HTML" mean? Nothing!

Somebody want $10... tell me how this will benefit anyone.

December 05 2006 at 9:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
rong

How can Microsoft call it an open XML format? Christe!

I ask this question in complete disgust knowing full-well that this is the Microsoft way; they see a standard... that infiltrate it and destroy that which makes the standard so great.

I can't wait for Apple to release something even halfway resembling Excel. Ram it down Microsoft's throat.

December 05 2006 at 9:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
rong

How can Microsoft call it an open XML format? Christe!

I ask this question in complete disgust knowing full-well that this is the Microsoft way; they see a standard... that infiltrate it and destroy that which makes the standard so great.

I can't wait for Apple to release something even halfway resembling Excel. Ram it down Microsoft's throat.

December 05 2006 at 9:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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