If you’re trying out the beta version of Windows 7 then you can open Word 2007 documents (.docx) and OpenDocument ODF (.odt) just using Wordpad 7. But you can’t open the older .doc files used by Word 2003 and earlier versions.
If you’re trying out the beta version of Windows 7 then you can open Word 2007 documents (.docx) and OpenDocument ODF (.odt) just using Wordpad 7. But you can’t open the older .doc files used by Word 2003 and earlier versions.
WordPad 7 comes with the Windows 7 beta in much the same way that WordPad has been included in all versions of Windows since Win95. But in Windows 7 it gets a visual revamp as well as some new features.
Word Pad 7 can open .docx files though it can’t cope with all the formatting and other features that Word 2007 can. This means you can open the docx file but might not be able to see everything you can if you opened the same document in Word 2007 (or earlier versions of Word with the compatibility pack installed).
Even worse, WordPad will strip the additional document information out when it saves a .docx file. That’s a bad decision by the developers. In our view the ‘unknown’ parts of the docx file (unknown to WordPad) should be preserved and retained.
At least WordPad warns you of the data loss when you open a .docx file:
“Some content can’t be shown. If you save the document that content will be lost. You can use Save As to save the document with a different name to preserve the original file.”
Note the top left corner of the WordPad ribbon – it has the same reduced-size ‘Office’ button as we’ll see in the next version of MS Office. Click on that button to get to New, Open, Save etc from the previous ‘File’ menu.
In our tests this message appears for any .docx file created by Word 2007 – even an empty document with no text. It seems the warning appears if WordPad opens a document created by another program though the warning implies that WordPad has detected particular ‘content’ it can’t display.
Windows 7 ‘out of the box’ associates the .docx extension with WordPad under the type ‘OOXML Text Document’. If you install another program that association will be updated.
WordPad 7 can’t open .doc files, created by earlier versions of Microsoft Word but then WordPad for Vista can’t either.
Other Word 2007 document types .docm .dotx and .dotm can’t be opened in WordPad 7, even if you rename them to .docx.
ODF files
WordPad 7 will also open and save OpenDocument ODF files with the .odt extension.
OpenDocument is the other ISO approved document standard, used by programs like OpenOffice.
WordPad 7 save options
As you can see you can save WordPad 7 documents as RTF, DOCX, ODT and plain text files.
See Also
- Oracle charges for ODF – MS Office converter
- Removing the ‘God mode’ folder
- Windows 7 & Vista God mode
- Windows 7 coming – should Office users bother?
- Using Office on netbook computers, part 2
- Word 2007 document hotfix for the sake of Word 2003 users
- A humble submission to their Lordships
- Microsoft announces Office 2007 Service Pack 2 … again
- Microsoft’s support for ODF docs – don’t hold your breath
- Microsoft Expands List of Formats Supported in Microsoft Office
- Where is the ODF add-in?
- Office for Mac gets a .docx converter
- MOICE is a mess
- Document compatibility patch – May 2007 update
- docx xlsx pptx conversion summary
- The Office 12 XML document format – Part 3
- The Office 12 XML document format – Part 2
- The Office 12 XML document format – Part 1
- Common misconceptions about Office 2007
- Using OpenDocument in Office
- Microsoft Office ‘support’ for ODF file format
- Google does DOCX
- Now we have two official XML document standards
- The real Office 2007 installation guide, part 3
- Get the Office 2007 Compatibity Pack
- Office 2007 document formats explained, part 2
- Office 2007 document formats explained, part 1
- Office 2007 document extensions
