How do I render a Word document (.doc, .docx) in the browser using JavaScript?

Question

No browsers currently have the code necessary to render Word Documents, and as far as I know, there are no client-side libraries that currently exist for rendering them either.

However, if you only need to display the Word Document, but don't need to edit it, you can use Google Documents' Viewer via an <iframe> to display a remotely hosted .doc/.docx.

<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://remote.url.tld/path/to/document.doc&embedded=true"></iframe>

Solution adapted from "How to display a word document using fancybox".

Example:

JSFiddle

However, if you'd rather have native support, in most, if not all browsers, I'd recommend resaving the .doc/.docx as a PDF file Those can also be independently rendered using PDF.js by Mozilla.

Edit:

Huge thanks to cubeguerrero for posting the Microsoft Office 365 viewer in the comments.

<iframe src='https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/embed.aspx?src=http://remote.url.tld/path/to/document.doc' width='1366px' height='623px' frameborder='0'>This is an embedded <a target='_blank' href='http://office.com'>Microsoft Office</a> document, powered by <a target='_blank' href='http://office.com/webapps'>Office Online</a>.</iframe>

One more important caveat to keep in mind, as pointed out by lightswitch05, is that this will upload your document to a third-party server. If this is unacceptable, then this method of display isn't the proper course of action.

Live Examples:

Google Docs Viewer

Microsoft Office Viewer

The answers by Brandon and fatbotdesigns are both correct, but having implemented the Google docs preview, we found multiple .docx files that couldn't be handled by Google. Switched to the MS Office Online preview and works likes a charm.

My recommendation would be to use the MS Office Preview URL over Google's.

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/embed.aspx?src=http://remote.url.tld/path/to/document.doc' 

There are a few js libraries that can handle .docx (not .doc) to html conversion client-side (in no particular order):

• https://github.com/lalalic/docx2html — docx to html, most elements are supported

• https://github.com/mwilliamson/mammoth.js — supports headings, lists, tables, endnotes, footnotes, images and text boxes

• https://www.npmjs.com/package/docx2html — Converts DOCX documents to HTML in the browser or nodejs

• https://github.com/artburkart/docx2html — apparently, works in the browser

^{Note: If you are looking for the best way to convert a doc/docx file on the client side, then probably the answer is don't do it. If you really need to do it then do it server-side, i.e. with libreoffice in headless mode, apache-poi (java), pandoc etc.}

ViewerJS is helpful to view/embed openoffice format like odt,odp,ods and also pdf.

For embed openoffice/pdf document

<iframe src = "/ViewerJS/#../demo/ohm2013.odp" width='700' height='550' allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen></iframe>

/ViewerJS/ is the path of ViewerJS

#../demo/ohm2013 is the path of your file want to embed

I think I have an idea. This has been doing my nut in too and I'm still having trouble getting it to display in Chrome.

Save document(name.docx) in word as single file webpage (name.mht) In your html use

<iframe src= "name.mht" width="100%" height="800"> </iframe>

Alter the heights and widths as you see fit.