How to open an old .doc, .xls or .ppt file

Which kind of old file you have

The extension tells you less than you would hope. A .doc can be anything from a Word 97 to 2003 document, which is the common case, to a Word 6.0 or 95 file, a Word for DOS file or even plain text someone renamed. A .xls can come from any Excel between version 2.1 and 2003, each with its own layout inside the file. A .ppt is almost always PowerPoint 97 to 2003. A .wri is a Windows Write file from the days of Windows 3.1.

If a program opens the file but shows garbled characters or nothing at all, it is usually an older generation than the program expected, not a broken file.

In Microsoft Office

Current versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint open the Office 97 to 2003 formats directly, in Protected View if the file came from the internet or an e-mail. Enable editing, then use File → Save As to keep a .docx, .xlsx or .pptx copy.

Some much older formats are blocked by default, among them Word 2 and earlier documents and early Excel worksheets. The setting is in File → Options → Trust Center → Trust Center Settings → File Block Settings. If you need to open one, allow that one format, open and save the file in the new format, then put the block back. The block exists because very old file formats were not written with today’s attacks in mind.

A .wri file used to open in WordPad. WordPad was removed from Windows 11 in version 24H2, so on a current machine a .wri needs Word or another word processor.

Without Microsoft Office

LibreOffice has some of the widest support for old formats of any office suite, Word 6 and 95, Write and early Excel workbooks included, and it is free. Open the file, check it, and save it in a current format.

Online converters work too, but they upload your file to a server you know nothing about. For anything private, such as contracts, accounts or medical letters, convert it on your own computer.

If the old file has a password

Office 97 to 2003 files protected with a password open in any program that supports their encryption, as long as you have the password. That encryption is much weaker than what Office uses today, especially in files from Office 97 and 2000, so once the file is open, save it as .docx or .xlsx and set a new password there.

Keeping it readable from now on

• Save a copy in the current format, and keep the original untouched beside it. A conversion can lose something the original still has.
• Check the things old files most often get wrong after conversion: numbered lists, page breaks, tables that ran across pages, and charts in workbooks.
• For documents that only need to be read, a PDF next to the .docx is a good second copy, since a PDF will look the same everywhere for a long time.