Read Word documents on any device, including Chromebooks, Linux and phones, without installing Microsoft Office. Drop a .docx, .doc, .rtf or .odt file on the page and the document appears as pages you can scroll, zoom and print.
Supported Word formats
| Format | Made by | What you see |
|---|---|---|
| .docx, .docm | Word 2007 and later | Full layout: headings, tables, images, page breaks |
| .dot | Word 97–2003 templates | Text and basic formatting |
| .doc | Word 97–2003 | Text and basic formatting; complex layouts simplified |
| .rtf | WordPad, TextEdit, many apps | Text and basic formatting |
| .odt | LibreOffice, OpenOffice | Text, tables and images |
What is preserved
Headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, images, page breaks and most text formatting of .docx files are rendered. Very complex layouts, uncommon fonts or embedded OLE objects can look different from Microsoft Word. Tracked changes and comments may not appear the way Word shows them, so for a document under review, check the final version in Word or Google Docs.
When it is useful
- A CV or cover letter from a candidate: read it without opening Word or uploading it to a cloud drive.
- A contract or offer sent as .docx: check the text on your phone before you get to a computer.
- An old .doc from an archive: see what is in it when no installed program opens it any more.
- A shared or school computer: nothing to install and nothing left behind.
Tips
- Fonts that are not on your device are replaced with similar ones, so lines and page breaks can shift slightly. The text itself is the same.
- Use the toolbar to zoom, go full screen or print. Printing to “Save as PDF” in your browser gives you a quick PDF copy.
- If a .doc file looks broken, open it in Word or LibreOffice and save it as .docx; the newer format is shown much more accurately.
- If the file will not open at all, it may not be a Word document despite its name. Try the main File Viewer, which accepts many more formats.
Privacy
Many “free online Word viewers” upload documents to a conversion server. Here the file stays on your device, which makes it suitable for contracts, CVs and internal documents.