How to open and edit .doc and .docx files on Mac OS X without Microsoft Office
April 20, 2016
Even after you move to the OS X platform, you will still be pursued by these or other file formats native to Windows PC. Until now, the corporate segment prefers Microsoft Word as the main tool for working with text. In this article I will explain your how to open .doc and .docx documents on your Mac without installing Microsoft Office.
OS X for a long time has a full-featured version of Microsoft Office, which is no different from the Windows version. Moreover, there are others, including the free programs such as OpenOffice or Pages from Apple, which are able to open and edit .docx files. However, what if you don’t want to occupy space on your hard disk drive with the program that in best case you will use once a month?
To open .docx files use the default OS X TextEdit application.
How to open DOCX-files on Mac without Microsoft Office?
- Open Finder and go to Programs.
- Find the TextEdit application.
- Drag the .docx file into the TextEdit app.
Moreover, the TextEdit app lets you not to only view the .docx files, but also edit them, and save the changes. However, there are drawbacks – the images will not be displayed and there won’t be any formatting, like tables or font styles. If you need more features, I strongly recommend you to install the Pages application from the Mac App Store, especially since this option is offered by Apple itself and it’s completely free.
How to open DOCX-files on a Mac using the Pages application?
- Download, install and run the Pages app. (The program is free for those who purchased and activated any Mac computer after September 1, 2013)
- Click File → Open.
- In Finder select the .docx file that you want to open and click Open.
Later, .docx format will be associated with Pages and you will be able to open documents directly from the explorer. With Pages, you will have the opportunity to work with images and formatting.
To export the file from Pages to original .doc or .docx use the menu File -> Export to-> Word.
It is worth noting that Pages exists in browser version and doesn’t require installation of applications from the App Store.
In order to work with Word files (doc and docx) go to the icloud.com website and login with your Apple ID. Now, simply open the web-application Pages.
Drag the .doc, .docx or .pages files on the operation panel. After that, they will be available for editing.