What is the difference: DOC vs DOCX

In this article, we will tell you about the important file formats DOC vs DOCX. We will discuss what they have in common, highlight their advantages and disadvantages, and finally find out which format is better for working with your files and documents.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• DOC vs DOCX: Which format is better?
• History of DOC and DOCX files
• DOC vs DOCX
• Why should I switch from DOC to DOCX?
• Conclusion

Introduction

Electronic documents are used for a variety of purposes these days, and one of the main ones has been the shift from paper documents to fully electronic documents. Devices that can properly store and print work in appropriate formats are used by many businesses. Various formats can be used to display this work, including text documents, photos, videos, and even presentations. 

Thanks to Microsoft Office, where users have many such alternatives for data entry, this application is one of the most practical. Several programs can be found on the Internet to help create these files, but Microsoft Word is one of the most popular programs used by millions of people around the world. Resumes, documents, blogs, articles, reports, and even portfolios can all be created by typing. And there are different types of formats in which this document can be saved. The two most common Microsoft Word formats are called DOC and DOCX.

DOC vs DOCX: Which format is better?

Many people don’t understand what DOC and DOCX mean or what the difference is. Microsoft Office has updated and introduced DOCX, which has more functionality than DOC. Competition from the open OpenDocument format (ODF), used by OpenOffice and LibreOffice, was one reason Microsoft moved to the XML-based DOCX as its new default. DOCX files are portable, lightweight, and easy to read. DOCX has been the default extension since Word 2007. Word 2003 and earlier cannot open DOCX files without an add-in, which is why converting old documents matters.

The main difference between the two file types is that DOC saves a document as a binary file containing all the formatting and other necessary information associated with it, while a DOCX file is actually a zip file with all the XML files associated with the document.
This means that you can use any zip compression program to open your document, if you replace the DOCX file extension with .ZIP.

History of DOC and DOCX files

Microsoft Word began using the DOC format and file extension more than 30 years ago, in the very first release of Word for MS-DOS.
In the early 2000s, various competing products could handle DOC files, although some of Word’s more exotic formats and options were not fully supported by other word processors. Microsoft Word could create documents, reports, and even text files for articles and assignments. These documents were also comparatively large, and the reason for the gaps was that the binary DOC format was proprietary and undocumented, so other applications had to reverse engineer it and lost fidelity on complex layouts, fields and revision marks. This was the main type of extension that was used until the Microsoft Word 2003 version.

When Microsoft released a new version of Word in 2007, a new format called DOCX took its place. The main benefit of this file extension was that it took up less space than the previous one, because the XML inside a DOCX is ZIP-compressed. Text-heavy documents shrink substantially, although a document dominated by images sees little difference, since image data is already compressed and does not shrink further inside the ZIP container. Another benefit was that it was compatible with many other Word-like programs that could recognize it. Additionally, it was faster than earlier versions, had a variety of additional text options and design innovations, and a new equation editor made it much easier to write and typeset mathematical notation. This format is the main and most used, and it looks like it will dominate for years to come.

DOC vs DOCX

Why should I switch from DOC to DOCX?

The DOC file format was the property of Microsoft, and its binary structure stayed undocumented until Microsoft published the specification in 2008. Other word processing products could open DOC files before that, but only by reverse engineering the format, so complex layouts, fields and revision marks did not always survive. Microsoft wanted to create a new file extension for word processing that was an open standard format and also better suited to modern workflows (such as creating a mail merge in Word).

This desire to create an open product that other companies could use led to the move to DOCX. Because of this, the behind-the-scenes work of DOCX was done in XML, hence the “X” part in the DOCX extension. Another advantage of the DOCX-type file is the addition of new features that were not possible with the old encoding.

Conclusion

Which format is better: DOC vs DOCX? The ability to access and work with files older than ten years is the only advantage of the DOC format. It also works with many legacy word processors.
Since not all people update their software with every new version, the biggest problem with the DOCX format can be compatibility, since Word 2003 and earlier versions cannot open DOCX files. Microsoft once offered a Compatibility Pack that let Office 2000, XP and 2003 open DOCX and other related formats, but it was retired in April 2018. Today the practical answer is to open the file in a current version of Word, in Word for the web, or in LibreOffice. DOCX also creates smaller files and makes it easier to read, open, and transfer data. In addition, a damaged DOCX file is easier to repair. Therefore, the DOCX format is undoubtedly the best choice for MS Word users.

If you found this article useful, check out our other blog post:

5 PDF File Formats You Should Know