Show All

Hide All

Need to send your Word document to someone who doesn't have Word? Or maybe someone sent you a Word document and you don't have Word.

Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003 provides a solution. You can send the Word Viewer 2003 with your Word documents so that others can view them. Or you can download the Word Viewer 2003 to view Word documents that you receive from others.

To download and install the Word Viewer 2003, click the link in the See Also section of this article.

Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003

With Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, you can open Microsoft Office Word 2003 documents and documents that are created with any previous version of Microsoft Word for Windows and Microsoft Word for Macintosh.

By using Word Viewer 2003, you can do any of the following:

• Open, view, and navigate the contents of a document
• Print a document
• Copy information from a document to another program

However, you cannot edit an open document, save a document, or create a new document in Word Viewer 2003.

Word Viewer 2003 also provides you with the following Microsoft Office Word 2003 features:

• Information Rights Management  Microsoft Office 2003 offers a new feature, Information Rights Management (IRM), that helps prevent sensitive information from getting into the hands of people who were never meant to receive it. In Word Viewer 2003, you can open a document that is restricted with IRM as long as you have permission to view that document. You can also print or copy content from a restricted document if you have specific print and copy permissions, and you can see which permissions you have.
• Reading layout view  A new feature of Microsoft Office Word 2003, reading layout view optimizes the reading experience. In Word Viewer 2003, you switch to reading layout view by clicking Reading Layout on the View menu.
• Extensible Markup Language (XML) file support  Word 2003 supports Extensible Markup Language (XML) (Extensible Markup Language (XML): A condensed form of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) that enables developers to create customized tags that offer flexibility in organizing and presenting information.) so that you can organize and work with documents and the data they contain in ways that were previously very difficult. In Word Viewer 2003, you can open and view XML files.
• Digital signature validation  In Microsoft Office 2003, you can use Microsoft Authenticode technology to digitally sign (digital signature: An electronic, encryption-based, secure stamp of authentication on a macro or document. This signature confirms that the macro or document originated from the signer and has not been altered.) a file by using a digital certificate (digital certificate: Attachment for a file, macro project, or e-mail message that vouches for authenticity, provides secure encryption, or supplies a verifiable signature. To digitally sign macro projects, you must install a digital certificate.). In Word Viewer 2003, you can open digitally signed documents and review digital certificates for a file. The certificate confirms that the document originated from the signer, and the signature confirms that the document has not been altered.

Note  You can also use Word Viewer 2003 to open files saved as Rich Text Format (.rtf) (rich text format (RTF): A file type used to transfer formatted text documents between applications, even those that run on different platforms, such as IBM and Macintosh.), Web Page formats (.htm, .html, .mht, .mhtml) (HTML: The standard markup language used for documents on the World Wide Web. HTML uses tags to indicate how Web browsers should display page elements such as text and graphics and how to respond to user actions.), XML (.xml) (Extensible Markup Language (XML): A condensed form of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) that enables developers to create customized tags that offer flexibility in organizing and presenting information.), Text (.txt), WordPerfect 5.x, WordPerfect 6.x (.doc, .wpd), and Works 6.0 and Works 7.0 (.wps).

When to use Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003

You may want to download and use Word Viewer 2003 for any of the following reasons:

• Someone has sent you a Word document (any version) and you do not have Word.
• Someone has sent you a Word 2003 document that uses a Word 2003 feature, such as IRM, and you do not have Word 2003.
• You want to distribute a Word document (any version), and you want to be sure that even people who don't have Word will be able to read it.
• You want to distribute a Word 2003 document, and you want to be sure that even people who don't have Word 2003 will be able to read it and take advantage of Word 2003 features.

Microsoft encourages you to distribute Word Viewer 2003 along with your Word documents to people who do not have Microsoft Word. Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003 is a replacement for Word Viewer 97 and previous Word Viewer versions.

For more information about distributing Word Viewer 2003, click "LICENSE TERMS FOR MICROSOFT SOFTWARE" in the See Also section of this article.