Using Word to create other types of documents

Updated 2011.12.22

Word can be used to create documents in a number of formats:

• Word format. Word will insert control characters representing formatting information into the text so that the formatting information will be retained when the document is re-opened by Word. These control characters make it impossible to read a Word document in a program such as Notepad. Variations:

· .doc: Word, pre-2007

· .dot: Word template, pre-2007

· .docx: Word document, 2007

· .dotx: Word template, 2007

· .docm: Word macro-enabled document, 2007

• Plain text (.txt). This choice saves only the ASCII characters that make up the text. No formatting information is saved, other than tabs and returns at the ends of lines. A plain text document is can be read by Notepad (a text editor, not a word processor). Some email programs also send messages as plain text. Other variations:

· .csv: comma-separated values

· .tsv: tab-separated values

• HyperText Markup Language (.htm or .html). Word can be used as an HTML editor, and it actually gives you more control over the format of the text than a dedicated HTML editor like FrontPage does. Create your document as you would normally. When it is time to save the document, click on the Office button. Then click on Save (or Save As if you are working on an existing file). In the Save dialog box, go to the Save as type box and click on the drop-down arrow. Choose either Web page or Single file web page. Word will automatically convert the file from its native (.doc/.docx) format to HTML format. Such a page can be viewed in a web browser like Internet Explorer. Another variation:

· .mht: Single-file web page

• Rich Text Format (.rtf). A standard formalized by Microsoft Corporation for specifying formatting of documents. RTF files are actually ASCII files with special commands to indicate formatting information, such as fonts and margins (definition from Webopedia). If you want to read a Word document in another word processing program (or vice-versa) that does not recognize Word's native format (.doc/.docx), try this. Depending on the version of Microsoft Works that you have, this may be the only way to move documents from Word to Works and vice-versa. More than you'd ever want to know about RTF.
• Portable Document Format (.pdf). Versions of Word before 2007 can't do this! And, Word 2007 can't do it "out of the box", either. But Microsoft provides an add-in for Word that you can download from their site to allow you to create PDF documents in Word. PDF documents are often found on the web, but are not so much for viewing on the web as printing. It's usually a real pain to read PDF documents in a browser. PDF files must be created with a program called Acrobat from Adobe. Adobe makes their Adobe Acrobat Reader available for downloading (for free) over the web, so anybody can read PDF documents. However, to create PDF documents, you must purchase the Adobe Acrobat Writer program, or use the free Open Office word processor, or try Acro Software's CutePDF.

Other useful download: Microsoft provides a free download that is an add-in for Word 2003 that will allow users of Word 2003 to read files created by Word 2007.