Today nearly every writing platform is able to open the file Microsoft Word. In fact, you do not even need to have writing software to open .docx documents as we’ll show you below.
How to open a docx file without Microsoft Office
Word online
If you want the best absolute compatibility with .docx documents, without strange formatting problems that appear out of nowhere, then the free online version of Microsoft Word is the way to go.
The warning here is that you need a Microsoft account (Hotmail and Outlook), and the file needs to be uploaded to OneDrive.
Assuming you have a Microsoft account, find your .docx file on your computer, right-click and click Copy.
Then, open OneDrive from your computer and choose where you want to save the .docx file in OneDrive, right-click and then click Paste.
Go to Microsoft Word Online, enter the login details of your Microsoft account, then click “Open from OneDrive” in the lower left corner.
Now you should see your document in the list. If not, click on the menu icon at the top left and then File to navigate to the exact location of the document.
Once you find the .docx file, click it and it will open for editing. It will automatically save to your OneDrive, even if you can download it and email it directly to people if you wish.
Google Docs
People are always surprised when they are told that .docx documents can actually be opened via Google Docs.
You’ll need to first upload the .docx file to Google Drive (via File Explorer if you have a Google Drive folder on your PC or by opening Google Drive in your browser, then dragging and dropping them).
Next, you have a couple of possibilities. You can install the Office Editing for Docs extension, Sheets & Slides on Chrome, which will detect .docx files and open them in their original format for editing.
If you do not want an extension, open the file in Google Docs (not in Google Drive), then when you’ve chosen, click “Edit as Google Docs” . In this way the file will be converted to Google’s Gdoc format for editing.
However, once the change is finished, you can download or send the file directly via email as a .docx file. You can go to “File -> Download as -> Microsoft Word” or go to “Send as attachment” and select the “docx” format from there.
Free Office Programs
If the cloud is not for you, then pretty much any decent office suite will have a word processor that can open .docx files. LibreOffice, WPS Office should do the job without problems.