openOpen Word Document Online: Free DOCX Viewer
Open a Word document online in your browser: a free DOCX viewer that shows your .docx as pages, with its fonts, tables, images, lists, headers and footers, and Arabic documents right to left. Zoom in, fit the page to your screen, and print it or save it as PDF. Your file never leaves your device.
How it works: open a Word document online
Drop your .docx file on the page
Choose or drop a Word document. It is read in your browser, never uploaded, and laid out as pages with its own page size and margins.
Read it as Word shows it
Fonts, bold and colours, tables with shading and merged cells, pictures, bullet and numbered lists, and each page's header and footer with its page number are drawn as in the document.
Zoom or fit the page
Use the zoom buttons to read small print, or Fit to width to fit the page to your screen. On a phone the page starts fitted.
Print or save as PDF
Click Print / Save as PDF. Your browser's print dialog opens with the document's pages only; choose your printer, or Save as PDF to make a PDF copy.
What the Word viewer handles: DOCX files
- Files: Word documents in the .docx format, made by Word, Google Docs, Pages or LibreOffice. Older .doc files are not supported: save them as .docx first.
- Layout: page size and margins, page breaks, headers and footers with page numbers, footnotes and endnotes.
- Content: fonts and text formatting, tables with borders, shading and merged cells, pictures, and bullet and numbered lists.
- Arabic: right-to-left paragraphs and tables, with Arabic and English mixed in one line.
- Output: zoom from 50% to 200% or fit to width, print, save as PDF, or download the original file.
Word viewer compared with Word Online, Google Docs and upload-based viewers
| OpenAnyDoc | Word Online or Google Docs | Upload-based online viewers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your file is uploaded | No. It is read in your browser. | Yes, to Microsoft or Google servers. | Yes, to the service's server. |
| Account or sign-in | None. | A Microsoft or Google account. | Often none; sometimes an email address. |
| Edit and save | View only for now; editing is coming. Print or save as PDF works today. | Yes, in the cloud copy. | Often view only. |
| Works without a network once loaded | Yes. | No. | No. |
| Size | No fixed limit; it depends on your browser's memory. | Set by the service. | Set by the service. |
| Cost | Free, no ads. | Free with an account; paid plans for more. | Free with ads, or paid. |
Word viewer online: common questions
- Is my file uploaded?
- No. Your browser reads the Word document itself and shows it on your screen. Nothing is sent to a server, so the file never leaves your device. To check it yourself, see how to check that a website does not upload your file.
- Can I edit and save it?
- Not yet: the Word viewer shows documents, and editing is coming. Today you can zoom, print the document, save it as PDF with Print / Save as PDF, or download the original .docx again.
- Is the original changed?
- No. The document is only read, and the file on your device is never touched.
- Is there a file size limit?
- There is no fixed limit: the limit is your browser's memory, and files over 50 MB show a warning first. Long documents with many pictures take longer to lay out.
- Does it work on mobile?
- Yes. On a phone the page is fitted to the screen width, and you can zoom in to read small print or print to PDF from the phone's share or print menu.
- Does it work offline?
- Once the page and its Word viewer have loaded, opening documents needs no network. It is not an installable offline app, though: the page has to be loaded online first.
- Can my company host its own copy?
- Yes. The source code is public on GitHub under the MIT licence. Build it and serve the folder it produces from any web server on your network, and the files people open still never leave their devices. Questions: support@openanydoc.com.
- How do I open a DOCX file without Microsoft Word?
- Drop the .docx file on this page. It opens in your browser as pages, with its formatting, on Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, Android or iPhone, with no Word licence, no Office install and no account. For the other free options, see how to open a DOCX file without Word.
- Can I open an old .doc file?
- No. Only .docx is supported; a .doc file shows a message instead. Open it in Word, Pages or LibreOffice, choose Save As and pick Word Document (.docx), then open the new file here.
- How do I convert a Word document to PDF?
- Open the .docx here and click Print / Save as PDF. In the print dialog, choose Save as PDF (or Microsoft Print to PDF on Windows) as the printer. Only the document's pages are printed, without the page around them.
- Does it show Arabic Word documents correctly?
- Yes. Right-to-left paragraphs read from right to left, right-to-left tables keep their columns in order from the right, and English words and numbers inside Arabic sentences stay in place.
- Why does my document look a little different from Word?
- The pages are drawn by your browser, not by Word. Fonts that are not installed on your device are replaced by similar ones, so lines can break in other places, and charts, text boxes and some drawing shapes may be simplified.
Why it's private: your files never leave your browser
Most online viewers upload your file to a server, so a copy of it leaves your device. OpenAnyDoc works the other way round: your browser reads the file and draws it on your screen. Nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and the file is gone from memory when you close the tab, so there is nothing for us to store, see or lose.
How we tell you about new features
Announcements are based on the release date shown to everyone, and nothing is stored on your device or sent anywhere.