TXT to DOCX Converter

Plain Text (TXT) is the simplest document format there is: nothing but characters, with no fonts, colours, images, or layout information of any kind. What a TXT file does carry is a character encoding — today almost always UTF-8 — which determines how the bytes map to letters. Because there is no hidden structure, TXT is the most portable and durable format available, readable on every computer ever made.

How to open a TXT file?

Every operating system opens TXT out of the box: Notepad on Windows, TextEdit on macOS, and gedit or nano on Linux. Web browsers display them too.

For large files or code, a proper editor such as Notepad++, Visual Studio Code, or Sublime Text is much faster and lets you change the encoding if the text appears garbled. Odd symbols usually mean the file was saved in a different encoding than the one your editor assumed. To hand a plain-text document to someone in a formatted form, use our TXT to PDF tool.

Developed by: No single vendor — an open, universal convention

Initial Release: 1963 (ASCII)

Word Open XML Document (DOCX) is the default format of Microsoft Word since the 2007 release and the most common word-processing format in the world. Despite appearances, a DOCX is not a single document but a ZIP package holding Office Open XML files, images, and styles. That structure makes DOCX smaller than the old DOC format, far more resistant to corruption, and readable by software that has never seen Word.

How to open a DOCX file?

Microsoft Word opens DOCX natively on Windows, macOS, the web, and mobile. Word for the web handles most documents in a browser.

LibreOffice Writer, Google Docs, and Apple Pages all read and edit DOCX, though very complex layouts can shift slightly. When the formatting must stay exactly as the author intended, convert the file with our DOCX to PDF tool before sharing it.

Developed by: Microsoft

Standard: ECMA-376 / ISO/IEC 29500

Initial Release: 2007