DOC (Microsoft Word Binary Document)
DOC is the legacy binary file format used by Microsoft Word from 1997 through 2003. It stores formatted text, images, and objects in a proprietary compound binary structure. While largely superseded by DOCX, billions of .doc files still exist in archives and older systems.
MIME Type
application/msword
Type
Binary
Compression
Lossless
Advantages
- + Universal compatibility with older Microsoft Office installations
- + Well-understood format with decades of tooling support
- + Supports macros, OLE objects, and VBA code
Disadvantages
- − Proprietary binary format is hard to parse without specialized libraries
- − Larger file sizes compared to ZIP-compressed DOCX
- − Macro-enabled DOC files are a common malware vector
When to Use .DOC
Use DOC only for compatibility with legacy systems or Word 97-2003; otherwise convert to DOCX for better compression and interoperability.
Technical Details
DOC files use Microsoft's OLE2 Compound File Binary Format, which stores data in a virtual filesystem of streams and storages. Text, formatting, and embedded objects are interleaved in binary streams.
History
The binary .doc format evolved through multiple Word versions starting in the late 1980s. The Word 97-2003 variant (OLE2 Compound Binary) became the de facto office document standard for over a decade.
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