Microsoft Word Viewer
Encyclopedia
Microsoft Word Viewer is a standalone freeware
program for Microsoft Windows
that lets users who do not own Microsoft Word
view and print documents that were created in Microsoft Office.
Microsoft Word Viewer is not available for purchase but can be downloaded from the Microsoft website for free. In order to edit viewed documents it is necessary to copy text to the clipboard
and paste into an alternative editor.
According to the terms of the Microsoft Word Viewer 2003 license agreement, the software may be installed and used to view and screen print documents created with Microsoft Office software. The software may not be used for any other purpose.
Supported file formats in Microsoft Word Viewer are: doc, docx, docm, dot, rtf, wri, txt, htm, html, mht, mhtml
, xml, wpd, wps. For viewing Office Open XML text documents (docx, docm), the "Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats" must be installed.
3.x and later.
Word Viewer 2003 was released on 15 December 2004 replacing Word Viewer 97-2000. It added support for Word XP and Word 2003 in addition to support for earlier versions.
Word Viewer was released on 26 September 2007 replacing Word Viewer 2003. It added support for Microsoft Office Word 2007. An associated product, Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack, adds support for the additional file formats found in Office 2007.
For Apple Mac OS X
, no version of Microsoft Word Viewer has ever existed, but one can open (and save) Word files (.doc, .rtf) with TextEdit
.
Freeware
Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
program for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
that lets users who do not own Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
view and print documents that were created in Microsoft Office.
Microsoft Word Viewer is not available for purchase but can be downloaded from the Microsoft website for free. In order to edit viewed documents it is necessary to copy text to the clipboard
Clipboard (software)
The clipboard is a software facility that can be used for short-term data storage and/or data transfer between documents or applications, via copy and paste operations...
and paste into an alternative editor.
According to the terms of the Microsoft Word Viewer 2003 license agreement, the software may be installed and used to view and screen print documents created with Microsoft Office software. The software may not be used for any other purpose.
Supported file formats in Microsoft Word Viewer are: doc, docx, docm, dot, rtf, wri, txt, htm, html, mht, mhtml
MHTML
MHTML, short for MIME HTML, is a web page archive format used to combine resources that are typically represented by external links together with HTML code into a single file. The content of an MHTML file is encoded as if it were an HTML e-mail message, using the MIME type multipart/related...
, xml, wpd, wps. For viewing Office Open XML text documents (docx, docm), the "Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats" must be installed.
History
Word Viewer 97-2000 was released on 17 March 1999 and was able to open documents that were created with versions of Word for Windows 97 and 2000 and with version 4.x and later versions of Microsoft Word for Macintosh. It was available in 16-bit and 32-bit Windows versions and optimised to display Word documents in Internet ExplorerInternet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
3.x and later.
Word Viewer 2003 was released on 15 December 2004 replacing Word Viewer 97-2000. It added support for Word XP and Word 2003 in addition to support for earlier versions.
Word Viewer was released on 26 September 2007 replacing Word Viewer 2003. It added support for Microsoft Office Word 2007. An associated product, Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack, adds support for the additional file formats found in Office 2007.
For Apple Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, no version of Microsoft Word Viewer has ever existed, but one can open (and save) Word files (.doc, .rtf) with TextEdit
TextEdit
TextEdit is a simple, open source word processor and text editor, first featured in NeXT's NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. It is now distributed with Mac OS X since Apple Inc.'s acquisition of NeXT, and available as a GNUstep application for other Unix-compatible operating systems such as Linux...
.
See also
- Microsoft Excel Viewer
- Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer
- List of word processors
- Comparison of word processorsComparison of word processors-General information:This table provides general information about selected word processors.-Characteristics:This table gives characteristics of each word processor.-Operating System Compatibility:...