Microsoft Word Viewer
Freeware program
title: "Microsoft Word Viewer" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["microsoft-office", "1999-software", "windows-only-freeware", "discontinued-microsoft-software", "document-viewers"] description: "Freeware program" topic_path: "technology/operating-systems" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word_Viewer" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Freeware program ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| logo | Microsoft Word Viewer icon.png |
| screenshot | Microsoft Word Viewer screenshot.png |
| caption | Word Viewer 2003 running on Windows 8 |
| developer | Microsoft |
| latest_release_version | v11.8169.8172 SP3 (Word Viewer 2003) |
| latest_release_date | |
| operating_system | Windows |
| platform | x86 |
| language count | 36 |
| language footnote | |
| language | English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (Hong Kong SAR), Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian |
| genre | Document viewer |
| license | Freeware |
| discontinued | yes |
| website | hide |
| :: |
| logo = Microsoft Word Viewer icon.png | screenshot = Microsoft Word Viewer screenshot.png | caption = Word Viewer 2003 running on Windows 8 | developer = Microsoft | released = | latest_release_version = v11.8169.8172 SP3 (Word Viewer 2003) | latest_release_date = | latest_preview_version = | latest_preview_date = | operating_system = Windows | platform = x86 | language count = 36 | language footnote = | language = English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (Hong Kong SAR), Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian | genre = Document viewer | license = Freeware | size = | discontinued = yes | website = hide
Microsoft Word Viewer is a discontinued freeware program for Microsoft Windows that can display and print Microsoft Word documents. Word Viewer allows text from a Word document to be copied into clipboard and pasted into a word processor. The last version was Word Viewer 2003 Service Pack 3 released in 2007.
According to the license terms of the Microsoft Word Viewer, the software may be installed and used only to view and screen print documents created with Microsoft Office software. The software may not be used for any other purpose. Users may distribute the software only with a file created with Microsoft Office software to enable recipient to view and print the file.
On November 29, 2017, Microsoft announced that Word Viewer would be retired in that month, no longer receive security updates nor be available to download. Microsoft recommended for Windows 10 users to use the Word Mobile application and for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users to upload the file to OneDrive and use Word Online to view and print documents free of charge with a Microsoft account.
Format support
Microsoft Word Viewer supports:
- binary Word documents (.doc)
- Rich Text Format (.rtf)
- Text files (.txt)
- HTML (.htm, .html) and MHTML (.mht, .mhtml)
- Word XML format (.xml)
- WordPerfect v5.x and v6.x files (.wpd)
- Microsoft Works documents (.wps)
The Compatibility Pack for the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats was released on 6 November 2006, providing support to document formats found in Word 2007:
- Office Open XML documents (.docx, .docm)
History
Word Viewer 6.0 was 16-bit and corresponded to Word 6.0. Word Viewer 7.0 and 7.1 was 32-bit and corresponded to Word 95. Word Viewer 7.1 would execute WordBasic macros without warning. The typical macro virus would not spread, but it could still execute (including any malicious code).
Word Viewer 97 was released with Word 97. It was available for Windows in 32-bit versions. It can display Word documents in Internet Explorer 3.x and later.
Word Viewer 2003 was released on 15 December 2004. This includes many security enhancements over Word Viewer 97, and was the first version of Word Viewer to receive security updates.
Word Viewer 2003 Service Pack 3 was released on 26 September 2007 with Office 2003 SP3. Microsoft continued to provide security updates until February 2019 (mostly because POSReady 2009 shipped with it).
Development of the product has stopped ever since. In the meantime, Microsoft has made other ways of reading Office documents available, either through Word Online as well as WordPad (a native component of Windows) in Windows 7 and later, which can create, view or edit Office Open XML documents (.docx) alongside Rich Text Format (.rtf) and text files (.txt).
No versions for any other operating system besides Windows were ever released.
Successors
Microsoft Word Viewer was retired in November, 2017. The Word Viewer features were replaced Microsoft Word Mobile. For viewing only, OneDrive or Dropbox allows viewing contents through web browser using Word Online.
References
References
- (27 November 2012). "How to obtain the latest Word Viewer". Microsoft.
- (19 January 2007). "Description of the Microsoft Word Viewer 97-2000". Microsoft.
- "LICENSE TERMS FOR MICROSOFT SOFTWARE - MICROSOFT OFFICE WORD VIEWER 2003". Microsoft.
- (29 November 2016). "Word Viewer to be retired in November, 2017".
- (26 September 2020). "Office for the web service description".
- (6 November 2006). "Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats".
- (20 November 2008). "How to obtain the latest Microsoft Word Viewer".
- (20 October 2011). "Microsoft Word Viewer". [[The Institution of Engineering and Technology]].
- (27 September 2007). "Description of Word Viewer 2003 Service Pack 3".
- (26 September 2007). "Word Viewer". Microsoft.
- "Description of the security update for Word Viewer: February 12, 2019".
- (30 September 2010). "Windows 7: The Top 10 Hidden Features". [[Ziff Davis]].
- "Using WordPad". Microsoft.
- [https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/word-mobile/9WZDNCRFJB9S?hl=en-us&gl=us Word Mobile]
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