All Microsoft Word File Formats Explained: A Complete Guide for Every User
Last Updated: 11 Jun, 2025
Microsoft Word is one of the most widely used word processing applications in the world. From academic writing to business documentation, it’s a staple across industries. But many users aren’t aware of just how many Microsoft Word file formats are available—and when to use each.
In this guide, we’ll walk through every major file format supported by Microsoft Word, explain its purpose, and help you choose the right format for your needs.
What is a DOCX File and How is it Different from DOC?
Last Updated: 9 Apr, 2025
A DOCX file is a document format used by Microsoft Word and part of the Office Open XML (OOXML) specification. DOC is the older binary file format used before Office 2007. DOCX is smaller, more secure, and supports advanced features.
Please read our detailed guide: Difference Between DOC and DOCX
What is a DOCX File? A DOCX file is a document file format used by Microsoft Word to store text, images, tables, and other formatting elements.
What is Google Docs? How to Get Started and What You Need to Know
Last Updated: 25 Apr, 2025
Table of Contents In this blog, we will cover the following topics
What is Google Docs? Getting Started with Google Docs Benefits of Google Docs Brief Overview of Google Docs and Other Google Workspace Tools Google Docs vs. Microsoft Word: Which One Should You Choose? Google Docs FAQs What is Google Docs? Google Docs is a free, web-based word processor offered by Google. It allows you to create, edit, and share documents online while collaborating in real-time with others.
Apache POI – Open-Source Java Library for Microsoft Office File Formats
Apache POI (Poor Obfuscation Implementation) is a popular open-source Java library developed by the Apache Software Foundation. POI stands for “Poor Obfuscation Implementation” humorously referencing Microsoft’s proprietary binary file formats. The main purpose of Apache POI is to provide Java developers with a set of APIs that allows them to read, write, and manipulate various Microsoft Office file formats, such as Excel spreadsheets (.xls and .xlsx), Word documents (.doc and .
Read and Extract Text from Word Documents in Java
Being a Java application developer who builds document processing applications, you may be interested in providing the capability of reading Word documents in your Java application and extracting text from these documents programmatically. You can leverage the power of DOCX4J API to read DOCX files and extract text from these files from your Java application.
In this article, we are going to show how to use DOCX4J API to achieve our goal of working with DOCX files for the extraction of text.
Create Word DOCX Files in Java with DOCX4J API
Microsoft Word’s DOCX format stands out as one of the most popular choices for creating rich and dynamic documents. While manual document creation through Word’s graphical interface is convenient, it might not always be feasible or efficient, especially when dealing with large-scale or repetitive tasks. This is where programmatic document generation comes into play. By leveraging the power of Java and the DOCX4J library, developers can automate the process of creating Word DOCX files, allowing for seamless integration into their applications and systems.
DOCX4J – A Java API for Microsoft Open XML Files
DOCX4J is an open-source free-to-use Java API for creating and manipulating Microsoft Office file formats. It lets you create and update Microsoft OpenXML file formats i.e. Word DOCX, PowerPoint PPTX, and Excel XLSX. DOCX4J uses JAXB (Java™ Architecture for XML Binding) for creating in-memory representation of corresponding objects.
Key Features of DOCX4J API for Java DOCX4J supports working with DOCX, PPTX, and XLSX files in a number of ways. The following are key features of DOCX4J API.
How Do I Open a Docx File in C# using FileFormat.Words?
Install an open-source FileFormat.Words for .NET, learn how to read Docx file in C# programmatically. This API offers methods to build a Word file viewer. Overview It is not easy to build business software that deals with file creation and manipulation immensely. Time and man hours are critical factors but opting for relevant third-party libraries plays a vital role in the development phase. Therefore, let’s go through an open-source .NET library that offers a wide range of methods to manipulate Word files programmatically.
How to Make a Table in Word Files using FileFormat.Words
FileFormat.Words is an open-source library that offers a free Word processor module that programmatically lets you add/modify tables in Word documents. Overview A Table in a Word document is considered an integral part when it comes to data representation. It is the most common document element and offers great convenience in terms of business document building. Amazingly, you can create a table in a Word document without using or installing MS Word on your local machine.
How to Edit a Word Document in C# using FileFormat.Words
Install FileFormat.Words and edit Docx files programmatically. Word document processing is a matter of a few lines of source code with this open-source API. Overview Welcome to another blog post in the continuation of FileFormat.Words for .NET exploration. In our previous article, we learned how to create a Word document in a .NET application using open-source FileFormat.Words. However, this open-source Docx editor lets you create Word documents and provides features to edit existing Word documents programmatically.