To continue working with certain Office files in this version of Office, Microsoft first needs to convert them to a different format using our online service. To do this, we send certain types of files (shown in the table below) over to a secure Microsoft service over the internet for conversion. The converted file is then sent back to your device immediately. The Microsoft online service doesn't store any of your file content on our servers. You can save the converted file and edit it in Office even when you're offline.
Converting the document to a different format helps you get the most up-to-date features and security functionality across all your devices. More specifically, the files are converted so you can do the following:
The Microsoft online service is used to |
Office Mobile for Windows 10 |
Office for Android |
Office for Mac |
Office for iOS |
---|---|---|---|---|
Open and edit Excel and PowerPoint binary files (.xls, .ppt) as Microsoft Office Open XML files (.xlsx, .pptx). |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Open and edit OpenDocument Format files (.odt, .ods, .odp) as Microsoft Office Open XML files (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx). |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes¹ |
Yes |
Open and edit Comma Separated Value (.csv) files in Excel as Microsoft Office Open XML files (.xlsx). |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Open PowerPoint Office Open XML files (.pptx) that have legacy objects, no longer supported in this version of Office. |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Open and edit Rich Text Format files (.rtf) in Word as Microsoft Office Open XML files (.docx). |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Print Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Export Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files as OpenDocument Format files (.odt, .ods, .odp) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes¹ |
Yes |
Export Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files as tagged PDF (.pdf) |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Open and edit PDF files as Microsoft Word files (.docx) |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
1 In Microsoft 365 for Mac, this feature only applies to Word (.docx) files, not Excel or PowerPoint files.
See Also
As mentioned earlier, the Microsoft online service doesn't store any of your file content on our servers. You can read the Privacy Statement for more information. In some very rare scenarios, the converted file might not contain some data that is incompatible with the new version of Office, but the original file is always kept intact and untouched.