File Extension DOC

Files with file extension DOC can be edited with the free Jarte word processor.

File extension DOC is used by a number of word processing programs to represent formatted text documents. Note that the actual file formats used by some of those word processors are completely incompatible with each other. By far, the most well known use of file extension DOC is for files created by Microsoft's Office Word word processor. Word's DOC file format has evolved over time. Older versions of Word are unable to open DOC files created with newer versions of Word unless those older versions have been supplemented with an Office compatibility pack. Beginning with Word 2007, Word no longer uses file extension DOC as its default file format. Instead, Word 2007 defaults to file extension DOCX which represents a new XML based document format created by Microsoft.

Jarte can open and save files with the file extension DOC if special DOC converters are present in Windows. There is a file extension DOC converter for Word 95 format and a separate DOC converter for Word 97-2003 format. Most versions of Windows include both of those DOC converters. Unfortunately, starting with Windows Vista, neither DOC converter is included in Windows. If you attempt to use Jarte to open a file with the file extension DOC and the appropriate DOC converter is not available then Jarte will display a message that will lead to a web page where the DOC converter can be freely downloaded.