Work with Office files

You can edit, download, and convert Microsoft® Office files in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

To edit an Office file, you can either:

Edit the file using Office Compatibility Mode (OCM)
Edit the file directly in Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides.

Edit Office files

Edit an Office file directly in Docs, Sheets, or Slides

If you want to work with others on a file in real-time, you can edit an Office file directly in Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides.

Edit an Office file directly

In Google Drive, double-click the Office file. This will open your file in Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides.

Tips:

Password protected files will open in viewer.
Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides don't support password protected files.

Features not supported

The following features are not supported when you edit with Docs, Sheets, or Slides:

Password protected files can be previewed in Google Drive, but not converted to Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides. Password-protected Office files opened from Drive will open in preview.
Macros (you can implement your macro in Apps Script).
Embedded charts and videos in Word and PowerPoint files will be converted to images.
Linked spreadsheets in Excel files.
When you transfer protected workbooks and worksheets from Excel to Google Sheets, your locked and hidden cells become viewable and editable in Google Sheets.
SmartArt images will be converted to Google Drawings.

Edit files using Office Compatibility Mode (OCM)

To open and edit Office files, you can use Office Compatibility Mode (OCM). With OCM, you can open and edit Office files in Drive, the Docs, Sheets, and Slides homescreens & apps, and Gmail.

Use OCM with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides

You can only use OCM using a Chrome browser on your computer.

Open a Chrome browser window.
Install the Office Editing for Docs, Sheets & Slides Chrome extension.
Open any Office file and start editing.

How to know you can edit Office files:

Open an Office file.
Click the File menu.
If you see "Office Compatibility Mode" in the menu, you can edit the file or save it to Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides.

Tip: To edit Office files on a Chromebook, see instructions in the Chromebook Help Center.

Download Office files

To download Office files using OCM:

Open a Chrome browser window.
Open an Office file.
In the top right, click Download.

Compatible file types

Open a section below to see:

File types you can open with OCM

These are the file types that can be opened with Office Compatibility Mode (OCM):

Documents: .doc (if newer than Microsoft® Office 95), .docx
Spreadsheets: .xls (if newer than Microsoft® Office 95), .xlsx, .xlt, .xlsm, xltm, xlam
Presentations: .ppt (if newer than Microsoft® Office 95), .pptx

File types you can convert to Docs, Sheets, or Slides

These are the file types that can be converted to Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides:

Documents: .doc (if newer than Microsoft® Office 95), .docx, .docm .dot, .dotx, .dotm, .html, plain text (.txt), .rtf, .odt
Spreadsheets: .xls (if newer than Microsoft® Office 95), .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlt, .xltx, .xltm .ods, .csv, .tsv, .txt, .tab
Presentations: .ppt (if newer than Microsoft® Office 95), .pptx, .pptm, .pps, .ppsx, .ppsm, .pot, .potx, .potm, .odp
Drawings: .wmf, .emf
OCR: .jpg, .gif, .png, .pdf

File types you can download or save to an Office format

These are the Office file types that can be saved back to an Office format:

Documents: .docx
Spreadsheets: .xlsx
Presentations: .pptx