Since 2008, Microsoft has released and updated the DOC format specification several times for use in other programs, though not all of Word’s advanced functions are supported by the open documentation.Īfter 2008, the DOC format was integrated into paid and free word processing programs from many vendors. Since Office and Word were the de facto standards for office productivity suites and word processors, respectively, the closed nature of the file format undoubtedly helped Microsoft retain its domination over products like Corel’s WordPerfect.
In the 90s and early 2000s, various competing products could work with DOC files, though some of Word’s more exotic formatting and options weren’t fully supported in other word processors. Microsoft Word has used the DOC file format for over 30 years. As an extension explicitly for Microsoft’s proprietary document processor, the format was also proprietary: Word was the only program that officially supported DOC files until Microsoft opened the specification in 2006, after which it was reverse-engineered. Microsoft Word started using the DOC format and file extension over 30 years ago in the very first release of Word for MS-DOS. DOC is only necessary if the file will be used by pre-2007 versions of Word. Both are relatively open, but DOCX is more efficient and creates smaller, less corruptable files .
What’s the difference, and which one should you use?ĭOC is a document format used by Microsoft Word, while DOCX is its successor. This wasn’t simply a belated 1990s “extreme” version of the format-that extra X stands for the Office Open XML standard. Starting in 2007 with the updated version of Word (and Microsoft Office), the default save format was changed to DOCX. For most of its long history, Microsoft Word has used a proprietary format for its saved files, DOC.
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