Legacy MS Word viewer with limited capabilities but with the ability to open DOC files and print them and toggle certain viewing options including highlight and bookmarks.
If you've ever gone to school in the computer age, worked in an office in front of a computer or simply used a computer for any type of word processing, you may be aware that the industry standard today is Microsoft Word, a part of the Microsoft Office family.
Well, the Microsoft Office suite is rather expensive if you're a home user and there are no doubt times where you've been sent a Word document to read and you were unable to open it because your system doesn't have the costly software installed. That's where Microsoft has smartened up and given any user running Windows the ability to view MS Word documents for free with Microsoft Word Viewer.
The application lacks the ability to edit Word DOC files, but it certainly does give you the ability to have a glance at them and print from from your home PC. The viewer supports DOCX files with its converter and can also view older DOC files the same way.
Microsoft Word Viewer does *not* give the user the ability to save files, however you're free to copy and paste the text into other applications which can edit, such as WordPad or Notepad, two applications which are included with your standard Windows installation. Another idea is to install OpenOffice and use that freeware application to do the editing, which subsequently can also save as a Microsoft Word DOCX/DOC document.
One last feature of Microsoft Word Viewer freeware is the option to view edits, editorial changes, and comments made to the document.
If you don't have Microsoft Office for any reason, Word Viewer is a handy application to have installed. This version replaces Microsoft Word Viewer 2003.
Features of Microsoft Word Viewer
- Add comments: Leave feedback or notes.
- Encryption support: Open encrypted documents.
- Navigation pane: Quickly jump to any section of a document.
- Open Word documents: Quickly access .docx files.
- Optimized for touch: Use touch controls to navigate.
- Print documents: Output printed copies.
- Read out loud: Listen to the text being read aloud.
- Spell check: Identify and fix spelling errors.
- Supports formats: WordPerfect, MS Works, RTF, Macro-Enabled Word documents .docm, MS Word .docx, Plaintext, XML.
- Text search: Quickly search for words or phrases.
- View documents: Read and analyze text.
- View revision history: Compare different versions of a document.
- Word count: Find out the length of a document.
- Zoom in and out: Magnify or reduce a page's size.
Compatibility and License
Is Microsoft Word Viewer free to download?
Microsoft Word Viewer is provided under a freeware license on Windows from office software with no restrictions on usage. Download and installation of this PC software is free and 12.0.6038.3000 is the latest version last time we checked.
What version of Windows can Microsoft Word Viewer run on?
Microsoft Word Viewer can be used on a computer running Windows 11 or Windows 10. Previous versions of the operating system shouldn't be a problem with Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Vista having been tested. Windows XP is supported. It runs on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems with no dedicated 64-bit download provided.
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