With the release of Office 2008 for the Mac and (I think) 2007 on the PC Microsoft introduced the .docx file type. I have no problem with it, but I no longer use Office only Google Docs. The problem is that from what I can tell Google Docs will not import .docx files … when I get one via email I am out of luck. But a couple of links emerged today … the first is the utility that Microsoft itself provides to change the file types. Simple application that is downloadable from the Microsoft site. The second, and I haven’t tried this one yet, is a site called Zamzar. It looks promising, allowing you to convert files into dozens of formats via the web. So the next time you get a .docx and need to work with it, there are option.
Zamzar Online File Conversion
I’ve used Zamzar often for file conversion because my high school students send me all types of files. I’ve been very pleased. Depending on time of day and file size, there can be a wait involved. You submit your file conversion request and then later get an email with a link to download the converted file. The link is valid for 24 hours (I believe).
There are more options if you sign up and that also reduces conversion time.
It works very well, as long as you’re not in a big hurry.
I too have found little compulsion to buy the big bloated office package, and have used Zamzar a few times when people send docx or pptx files. It works great, but you have to wait maybe a few minutes or more to give it time to process (you upload the file, it processes, and I think you get an email/link when it is ready).
On my office PC I never installed MS Office but am running OpenOffice which sure looks and runs about the same. There are a number of addons, conveter tools out there; see this collection of links
http://thedailyblahblah.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/docx-in-openoffice-revisited/
As the author of that post notes, the flip side is replying to the sender and ask them to use “Save as…” for a more universal format đŸ˜‰
Thanks for this. I still have a copy of Word 2003 that I use on my desktop, and currently I can’t open the .docx files people send me, so this will prove helpful for both this problem and the google docs issue.
Thanks for the heads up on the other links! As we move into the world of Google Chrome and optimized browsers to power desktop like experiences we need options to help us exist with the later adopters. I wonder what the landscape for browser based desktop replacement applications will look like a year from now? I wonder if we should be looking more closely at this as a real trend in our schools … Alan, perhaps something to think about for the Horizon Report — I know it isn’t as glitzy as most of the things we typically identify there, but I think we can sense a real trend here.