Read DOCX Files in Internet Explorer - No Word 2007 Required

you can make a docx reader out of Internet Explorer or any other text editor (like notepad) – just follow these steps:

Step 1: Change the file extension of your docx file to .zip (hello.docx -> hello.zip)

Step 2: Extract the contents of this zip file locally using Winzip or any other unzip utility.

Step 3: Open the “word” folder in the extracted files and you should see a file called document.xml.

Open document.xml inside Internet Explorer and there you have the full text of your docx document.

If there are any images or charts, they’ll be available under a sub-folder called media.

Though you get to read the text without formatting, it’s still a useful technique to know.

70 Tricks