Cannot view DOCX files

Leo,
I am on V. 9.1.1.0.3156 (latest), but my viewer pane shows hex code when viewing DOCX files.

Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,
Bud

Which version of Word do you have installed, if any?

That's not the latest version.

I have Word 2002, which is pre-DOCX. But why would that affect the onboard viewer?

Re: Steve, I was led to believe it was the latest because I checked for updates this morning and got the "you have the latest version" message. Should I be updating anyway when I get that message?

Thanks,
Bud

The Opus ActiveX plugin doesn't view anything by itself. It hooks other components/programs into Opus so that they can act as viewers. It's like the way Internet Explorer uses Word (or the standalone Word Viewer) to display documents, or uses the Flash Control to display Flash files, without natively understanding either format.

You probably just need to install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats which you can download from Microsoft. That should make Word 2002, and in turn Opus, able to load DOCX files.

If it doesn't work there are some other components which can view DOCX files but try that first to keep things simple.

See FAQ: Why doesn't the auto-updater detect the latest version?

[quote="lbud"]Re: Steve, I was led to believe it was the latest because I checked for updates this morning and got the "you have the latest version" message. Should I be updating anyway when I get that message?
[/quote]
Bud

You should know that DOPus rolls out the automatic updates some time after files land here. There are good practical reasons for this, as was pointed out to me when I made the same observation some months ago.

The previous version never even made it out to the automatic update for your copy to detect. They put together an even newer version that has yet to hit the update feed.

This is actually one reason I was given for the roll out strategy, it gives them time to find and fix bugs that show up among a larger band of users.

As an experiment, and because none of the bugs and things fixed in recent versions affect me, I have left it to the updater to alert me. It still shows me as up to date, but I am still on 9.1.1.0.3156.x86

If you do have problems, then it is probably a good idea to manually check the version.

I've had that compatibility pack installed since July. I can open DOCXs in Word, just unable to view them in Opus.

I'm not sure why Opus is unable to use the installed software. Does it need to be installed in any particular directory to work? (Just flailing about here.)

Thanks,
Bud

What happens if you drop a .DOCX file on Internet Explorer?

What doing the same with a .DOC file?

What happens if you drop a .DOCX file on Internet Explorer?

What doing the same with a .DOC file?

Those are viewable using IE. I have v7.

They should work in Opus then. You could try configuring the ActiveX plugin in Opus and moving the .DOCX file extension from the Microsoft Office line down to the Internet Explorer line. That will make Opus use IE as a go-between.

Okay, I moved docx handling from Office to IE.
The hex code is gone, but now I have this...
[screenshot of viewer window for a docx file]

Thanks,
Bud

[/img]

I've tried with a similar setup and I can't get the docx files to view in Opus or IE. (IE opens them in a separate Word window, rather than in the browser itself.)

I'll look into it more over the weekend and see if there's a way to make it work.

I've worked out what's wrong and will hopefully have a new version out this weekend which works around the problem.

(The problem is due to the way the docx converter registers itself. Seems wrong to me but maybe there's a good reason. Should be easy to work around anyway.)

I found time this evening to finish off the changes I started a few days ago. Give the new plugin version a try:

pretentiousname.com/activex/index.html

Hi, old thread but I noticed I can't preview a Google Docs .docx file in Directory Opus. Is there anything I can do?

Have you done the things the message suggests?

Does the Word viewer work in File Explorer? If it doesn't work there, you know the problem is outside of Opus.

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Hello, Leo. Thank you for your quick reply. I hesitated to follow the advice in this thread given it's from 2008. For example, Open Office has since been discontinued. However, I see that Explorer also does not open .docx so I will attempt the existing solutions. Cheers.

I meant the advice in the screenshot you posted. :slight_smile:

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Welp, I began down the rabbit trail of MS Office and came to know I’m utterly ignorant about office software. Open Office (which may have helped here) is no more, as I’m sure you know. LibreOffice does not help me preview docx when installed. Maddeningly, despite Microsoft developing both docx and Windows’ Explorer there’s no way to view that format natively.

Since being unable to preview docx is not worth the $60/yr. Office 365 fee for a local installation, I humbly request that the almighty dev team at Directory Opus develop a docx preview function. Despite this being a selfish request, there’s an apparent gap in the market and this would make dopus more valuable. Such a feature will weigh into my decision to purchase an upgrade license in the future :slight_smile:

If I’m missing something, please let me know. Thanks.

You could use Pandoc to convert the .docx file to an .html file

pandoc.exe -o {filepath$|ext=html} {filepath$}

and show it in the viewer pane.

The fonts are likely to differ, but since you can't read the original you'll never find out :wink:

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