DOCX downloads as DOC?

DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Aaron NA -
Number of replies: 18

Our college has recently gone to Office 2003 and 2007 on faculty and student machines, then deployed Office 2007 compatibility pack on all Staff machines which run Office 2003. When a faculty member uploads a .DOCX or other Office 2007 file and then attempts to download it. The "Save As" box lists the file with a .DOC extension and not a .DOCX extension. So of course when you click open file, it opens Word 2003. The only way around this so far, is to train people on how to click "Save" add the "X" to the end of the file extension and then save and open it off the local machine.

If any one has any idea's on how to resolve this issue and have it automatically lauch Office 2007 file formats in Office 2007 it'd be greatly appreciated!

Our server is Moodle version 1.9.2 running on a Redhat Linux Enterprise v5.0 fully patched server.

Thanks in advance!

Aaron

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In reply to Aaron NA

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Beth Crook -
We are finding it to be more of a problem with using .docx format anyways because of sharing files outside of our community. So I've had all of our faculty/staff/students change the preference setting to the default save as .doc. Same within Excel, default save as .xls.

We are using Mac, so I can't speak for Windows. But in Mac, we just go to Word menu -> Preferences -> Save to make the change. For Excel, it's Excel menu -> Preferences -> Compatibility.
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In reply to Beth Crook

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Werner van Staden -
I would like to agree with Beth on this... The problem with .docx format is that it is a proprietary (non-standards compliant) format which cannot be accessed without MS Office 2007. How would you and your students communicate with people outside of your department? What would you do when Microsoft releases the next MS Office which has, say, .docz format? Would you communicate using that and get workarounds in Moodle to handle the new extension?

I would suggest going the route of Open Document Format (ODF) which ensures maximum compatibility and information sharing - its an international standard and its open, so no Microsoft encryption on your students', your institution or your own information smile

Open Office is freely available, well supported and loads/saves ODF by default - in addition to being able to load/save .doc, .xls and .ppt formats.
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In reply to Werner van Staden

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Marc Grober -
Bravo!

As noted elsewhere, while it is great to try and serve everyone, those using proprietary software sold by organizations charged with anti-trust violations around the globe should understand that they are in a very real sense propping up the beast and if they want to use open software, they should start with their OS and core applications.....
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In reply to Marc Grober

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Aaron NA -

As even I can second everything in these postings, our college is primarily a Microsoft show and faculty choose to always have the latest and greatest Windows and Office products. I am however going to copy the 2 postings in this thread and hopefully be able to start changing some minds around here. Since we all know an average student usually cannot afford to purchase the latest and greatest microsoft products to work at home.

Thanks for everything!

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In reply to Aaron NA

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Aaron NA -

Please excuse this, it appears that I've located the problem. In the filelib.php it has

'docx' => array ('type'=>'application/msword', 'icon'=>'docx.gif'),

By changing type to vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document, this resolved the issue. Below is a list of other application types for more Office 2007 documents.

application/onenote                                                         onetoc onetoc2 onetmp onepkg
application/vnd.ms-excel.addin.macroEnabled.12                              xlam
application/vnd.ms-excel.sheet.binary.macroEnabled.12                       xlsb
application/vnd.ms-excel.sheet.macroEnabled.12                              xlsm
application/vnd.ms-excel.template.macroEnabled.12                           xltm
application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.addin.macroEnabled.12                         ppam
application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.presentation.macroEnabled.12                  pptm
application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.slide.macroEnabled.12                         sldm
application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.slideshow.macroEnabled.12                     ppsm
application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.template.macroEnabled.12                      potm
application/vnd.ms-word.document.macroEnabled.12                            docm
application/vnd.ms-word.template.macroEnabled.12                            dotm
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation   pptx
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.slide          sldx
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.slideshow      ppsx
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.template       potx
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet           xlsx
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.template        xltx
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document     docx
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.template     dotx

Average of ratings: Useful (4)
In reply to Aaron NA

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Geoffrey Rowland -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi

You may find some other useful information on this issue in this thread:

http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=71960

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In reply to Geoffrey Rowland

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Jean-Pierre Pawlak -
The issue was discussed but (like Haruhiko Okumura said) it wasn't fixed.
On my 1.9.2 Moodle a test.docx file was downloaded as test.docx.doc.
Word 2002 couldn't open it.
I followed the advice of Aaron and now it's working fine.


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In reply to Jean-Pierre Pawlak

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Aaron NA -
I'm very pleased that this solution worked for you as well. This was a real headache for quite some time, until I stumbled across a help document on Apache Mime File Types for Office 2007 and a old moodle help document noting the filelib.php file holding mime types for moodle. The only thing that you really have to watch for is upgrading moodle will erase this modified filelib.php file and you'll have to make the edits again.
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In reply to Aaron NA

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Michael Willits -
Another option that works, particularly for institutions that haven't yet deployed the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack (as mentioned previously) -- and, more appropriately, those whose faculty/staff/students are using various versions and vendors of office productivity suites -- is to change the default "Save As..." in MS Office 2007 (as well as MS Office 2008 for Mac) from .docx, .pptx, .xlsx, and so forth to the Office 2003 file formats of .doc, .ppt, and so forth.

Although it is perfectly logical to modify the Moodle code to properly recognize the new MS Office formats, it also makes sense to address the problem -- at least temporarily -- at the source until office suites and web apps all can reliably recognize the new formats.
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In reply to Michael Willits

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Aaron NA -

You know, that is a most interesting suggestion and no I didn't even think about that. Thanks for the idea!

Aaron

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In reply to Aaron NA

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Ron Meske -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Hi Aaron,

If you haven't reported this in the issue tracker (http://tracker.moodle.org/secure/Dashboard.jspa), it would be beneficial.  That way it will get into a future build and we won't have to edit filelib.php each time a new version comes out.

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In reply to Ron Meske

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Aaron NA -
Thanks for the suggestion, I've submitted the bug to tracker. Along with a copy of all of the mime types and a copy of my filelib.php file. Hopefully they'll start including this in future releases.
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In reply to Aaron NA

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by A. T. Wyatt -
Voted:
http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-15987

atw
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In reply to A. T. Wyatt

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Eloy Lafuente (stronk7) -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Hi,

I've updated Moodle mime types as suggested by Aaron Cowell (thanks!) both in Moodle 1.8 and 1.9. Changes are available via CVS and will be present in next weekly builds. The bug in the tracker is MDL-15987.

Any feedback about behaviour after the change will be welcome! Thanks!

Ciao smile
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In reply to Eloy Lafuente (stronk7)

Re: DOCX downloads as DOC?

by Aaron NA -

Thanks Eloy for the attention to this problem. We've / I've been relunctant to apply any more weekly updates to our servers due to this particular problem. But I'll certainly stay up on them now that we have this under our belt.

PS> Don't worry about the credit, just as long as we get the fix big grin Thanks again!

Aaron

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