Word Document

File Extension: .doc Developer: Microsoft Views: 1295503 Updated: 2012-04-26 23:13:05 Hex: N/A ASCII: N/A

Microsoft Word versions from the Word 97 version up to the Word 2003 version used a binary format which was known as a .doc file.

These files usually consist of

  » Main stream

  » Summary information stream

  » Table stream

  » Data stream

  » 0 or more object streams that contain data for OLE 2.0 objects which are embedded in the document.

This format was originally used by the program Word Perfect during the 1980´s and was then later used by Microsoft as the proprietary format for Microsoft Word.

It is possible to open these files using.

  » Open Office

  » AbiWord

With the advent of Word 2007 the doc format was superceded by the xml based docx format.