Convert Word (DOCX) to Plain Text
Free online converter for Word (DOCX) files. Unformatted UTF-8 text. Nothing to install, no watermark, and every file is deleted automatically.
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Upload a Word (DOCX) file to convert it to Plain Text. Up to 3 files at once, 100 MB each.
Free · up to 3 files · 100 MB each · files deleted automatically after 1 hour.
About DOCX and TXT
Word (DOCX) .docx
Word's modern format: a ZIP archive of XML parts describing text, styles and layout. It has been the default since Office 2007.
Good for
- Built for editing — text flows and restyles freely
- Tracked changes, comments and styles
- Opens in Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice and Pages
Trade-offs
- Layout shifts between applications and font sets
- Not a reliable final-delivery format — use PDF for that
- Complex documents can lose fidelity between editors
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Plain Text .txt
Just characters. No fonts, no sizes, no layout — which is exactly why it will still open, unchanged, in fifty years.
Good for
- Universally readable, now and indefinitely
- Tiny, and works with every text tool ever written
- Nothing hidden — what you see is the whole file
Trade-offs
- No formatting, images or structure whatsoever
- Character encoding must be right or accents break
- Line endings differ between Windows and everything else
text/plain
DOCX and TXT side by side
| DOCX | TXT | |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | Zipped XML | None |
| Animation | No | No |
| Typically used for | Documents still being written or reviewed | Notes, logs, source data, long-term archives |
What changes when you convert DOCX to TXT
Rendered by LibreOffice
The conversion runs through headless LibreOffice — the same engine behind the desktop suite, not a lookalike parser. It handles ordinary documents faithfully. Where it can drift is on the elaborate: a document leaning on fonts the server does not have will have them substituted, and the substitute rarely occupies exactly the same width, so line and page breaks can move. Heavily designed layouts are worth checking against the original.
Comments and tracked changes
Editorial metadata is the first thing to go in a format conversion: comments, tracked changes and revision history rarely have an equivalent in TXT and are generally dropped or flattened into the text. Treat the output as a clean copy of the current state of the document. If the review history matters, keep the DOCX alongside it.
Only the words survive
TXT stores characters and nothing else, so fonts, sizes, colours, images, tables and page layout are all dropped. What you get back is the text itself — which is the point when you want the content free of the formatting around it.
Other Word (DOCX) conversions
Other ways to get Plain Text
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