Editing Doc (computing) (section)

== Specification ==
Because the DOC file format was a closed specification for many years, inconsistent handling of the format persists and may cause some loss of formatting information when handling the same file with multiple word processing programs. Some specifications for Microsoft Office 97 binary file formats were published in 1997 under a restrictive license, but these specifications were removed from online download in 1999.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2006/presentations/wednesday_o3.pdf |title=Comparing ODF and OOXML |year=2006 |access-date=2011-05-23 |archive-date=2011-09-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928034821/http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2006/presentations/wednesday_o3.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{citation |url=http://www.robweir.com/blog/2006/11/beware-of-geeks-bearing-gifts.html |title=Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts |year=2006 |access-date=2011-05-23}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/gnu/www/software/mswordview/MSWordView.html |title=A Word 8 converter for Unix |access-date=2011-05-23}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.opennet.ru/docs/formats/wword8.html#01 |title=Microsoft Word 97 Binary File Format |access-date=2011-05-23}}</ref> Specifications of later versions of Microsoft Office binary file formats were not publicly available. The DOC format specification was available from Microsoft on request<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wictorwilen.se/Post/Royaltyfree-specifications-for-Microsoft-Office-binary-file-formats.aspx |title=Royalty-free specifications for Microsoft Office binary file formats |date=4 September 2007 |access-date=2011-05-23}}</ref> since 2006<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brian_jones/archive/2008/01/16/mapping-documents-in-the-binary-format-doc-xls-ppt-to-the-open-xml-format.aspx |title=Mapping documents in the binary format (.doc; .xls; .ppt) to the Open XML format |date=2008-01-16 |access-date=2011-05-23}}</ref> under restrictive [[Reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing|RAND-Z]] terms until February 2008. [[Sun Microsystems]] and [[OpenOffice.org]] [[reverse engineering|reverse engineered]] the file format.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://sc.openoffice.org/compdocfileformat.pdf|title=Microsoft Compound Document Format|date=2007-08-07|work=[[OpenOffice.org]]}}</ref> On February 15, 2008, Microsoft released a .DOC format specification<ref name="ms-doc-specification">{{citation | url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc313153%28v=office.12%29 |title=MS-DOC: Word (.doc) Binary File Format |date=2019-11-19|access-date=2020-02-25}}</ref><ref>{{citation |url=http://www.microsoft.com/interop/docs/officebinaryformats.mspx |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080218212338/http://www.microsoft.com/interop/docs/officebinaryformats.mspx |title=Microsoft Office Binary (doc, xls, ppt) File Formats |date=2008-02-15 |archive-date=2008-02-18}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/B/E/0BE8BDD7-E5E8-422A-ABFD-4342ED7AD886/Word97-2007BinaryFileFormat(doc)Specification.pdf|title=Microsoft Office Word 97 - 2007 Binary File Format Specification (*.doc)|year=2008|work=Microsoft Corporation }}</ref> under the [[Microsoft Open Specification Promise]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx|title=Microsoft Open Specification Promise|date=March 23, 2009|work=Microsoft Corporation}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://support.microsoft.com/kb/840817/en-us |title=How to extract information from Office files by using Office file formats and schemas |access-date=2011-05-23}}</ref> However, this specification does not describe all of the features used by DOC format and reverse engineered work remains necessary.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/02/19.html |title=Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated? (And some workarounds) |author=Joel Spolsky |date=19 February 2008 |access-date=2011-05-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131014090710/http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/02/19.html |archive-date=2013-10-14}}</ref> Since 2008 the specification has been updated several times; the latest change was made in May 2022.

The format used in earlier, pre-97 ("1.0" 1989 through "7.0" 1995) versions of Word are less known, but both OpenOffice and LibreOffice contain open-source code for reading these formats. The format is probably related to the "Stream" format found in similar Excel versions.<ref>{{cite web |title=LibreOffice/core |url=https://github.com/LibreOffice/core/blob/eaeabd78585c185e58f62be49e5888ef78d94793/sw/source/ui/uno/swdetect.cxx#L68 |website=GitHub |language=en}}</ref> Word 95 also seems to have an OLE-wrapped form.