.doc · Word document (DOC)

Open a .DOC file in your browser

Open a .doc in your browser — no upload, no signup, free. The file stays on your device. Filelathe reads classic Word text locally. No Office install.

Open in Filelathe

How it works

Drop the .doc or use Choose file. Filelathe treats pre-2007 Word files as OLE Compound Files and reads them in the tab.
It reads the WordDocument stream and, when the piece table is present, uses that table to recover the prose.
The text opens in the document viewer — a readable document, not a hex dump. If the piece table is missing, it scrapes readable text from the stream instead.

Pre-2007 Word files are OLE Compound Files. Filelathe reads the WordDocument stream (piece table when present), recovers the prose, and opens it in the Markdown document viewer so .doc feels like a readable document instead of an archive or hex inspector.

How to open a .doc file without Word

Drop the file or use Choose file. Filelathe sniffs the OLE container, reads WordDocument, and opens the prose in the document viewer. No desktop Word required.

For a modern package with images, use the .docx page instead. This path does not read word/document.xml.

Open a classic .doc on a Chromebook, Mac, or iPad

Use the Filelathe site in the browser you already have. Choose file works on a Chromebook, Mac, or iPad; drop works on the desktop. There is no plug-in and no Office install.

Does my .doc get uploaded?

The OLE file is parsed in your tab, including the WordDocument stream. Choosing the tool window may send the filename, the type, and samples to the API. That is not an upload-to-convert service. See private in-browser viewing.

View vs convert: what a .doc preview keeps local

You are viewing recovered text, not converting the binary into another Office format. Nothing is written back to the .doc.

The same local idea applies to .xls and .ppt, which are OLE files too, with their own viewers.

What you can and can't do

You can

Recover body text from the WordDocument stream, using the piece table when Word wrote one.
Show that prose in the same document viewer used for Markdown, up to about 100,000 characters.
Fall back to a scrape of readable text, or to the OLE stream list, when the piece table is not usable.

You can't

Show images, drawings, or Word formatting. A .doc preview is text only.
Edit the file or save a .doc or .docx.
Unlock password-protected or corrupt documents. Those stay unreadable rather than being guessed.

FAQ

Can I open an old .doc without Word?

Yes. Filelathe reads the OLE container locally and pulls text from the WordDocument stream. You do not install Office.

Is a .doc opened the same way as a .docx?

No. A .doc is an OLE Compound File, not a ZIP. A .docx is read from word/document.xml and can include word/media images. A .doc view is the recovered prose only.

Why might some text be missing or jumbled?

Text comes from the piece table when that table is intact. If it is missing, Filelathe scrapes readable runs from the stream, which can miss or reorder pieces. Formatting is not restored either way.