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Why custom file type?

Anonymous
2022-11-21T16:51:10+00:00

Hello, Why do you need a custom file type for microsoft word documents?

It's superbly annoying when my teacher sends word documents and I can't convert it to a usable word document.
Do you even have a code that converts a "Microsoft Word 97 - 2003 Document" to a markdown file, or text file?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | Other | Windows

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  1. John Korchok 231.4K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2022-11-22T20:39:20+00:00

    Most commercial (non-open-source) programs have a native file format, which is what you refer to as "custom". Acrobat's is .pdf, Word's are .doc, .docx and variants for templates, etc. These are usually formats that can deliver every feature of which the program is capable. Other formats that are not specific to a particular program, like .txt, may have reduced capabilities that make more generic documents.

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  1. Jay Freedman 207.5K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2022-11-21T17:45:35+00:00

    Word does not have any "custom" file types. It has a legacy of *.doc files from the 2003 and earlier versions, and it has a *.docx file format which implements an international standard. (Almost every other word processing program has one or more proprietary file formats.)

    Current versions of Word can open either type of document (or text files or PDF files), and can save the resulting document as either type, as well as plain text or any of the other types shown in this screen shot of the Save As dialog:

    What format do you consider "usable"?

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  2. Jay Freedman 207.5K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2022-11-23T01:23:46+00:00

    The free suite LibreOffice is open source. Its Writer component will open Word files, and can save the resulting document in a similar assortment of formats:

    Image

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  3. Stefan Blom 338.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-11-23T01:04:57+00:00

    LibreOffice can open both *.doc and *.docx files.

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  4. John Korchok 231.4K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2022-11-22T21:37:11+00:00

    Perhaps there already is. Here's an add-in that converts Word to Markdown. It's not open-source, but then I only spent 5 seconds looking. Word already writes .txt and .odt, 2 other open-source document formats.

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