How to Open 2007 Microsoft Word Files

Older Versions of Word
1. Download the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel and PowerPoint File Formats from the Microsoft website. The Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel and PowerPoint File Formats add-on allows versions of Word, back to Word 2000, to open the Word 2007 DOCX files.
2. Install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel and PowerPoint File Formats to your computer. To install the compatibility pack, go to the 'Downloads' folder on your 'C:' drive, double-click the compatibility pack icon.
3. Open Microsoft Word. The components of the compatibility pack that pertain to Word install to the program automatically. Go to 'File>Open,' find the DOCX file and double-click the file to open it.
OpenOffice
4. Download the OpenOffice suite from the OpenOffice website. Like Microsoft Office, the free OpenOffice suite contains multiple programs, including a spreadsheet program and a word-processing program named OpenOffice Writer.
5. Go to the 'Downloads' folder and double-click the OpenOffice icon. Follow the screens that come up to install all of the components of OpenOffice onto your computer.
6. Launch OpenOffice Writer by going to 'Start>All Programs>OpenOffice>OpenOffice Writer.' OpenOffice Writer opens files from multiple word processing programs, including Microsoft Word 2007.
7. Open the 'File' menu and choose 'Open.' In the window that comes up, go to the folder where the Microsoft Office Word 2007 file is stored and double-click the file name to open the file in Writer.