Writing Desk opens Word files (.docx) as they are. Edit them with all the usual tools and save, and they stay Word files, ready to send back to whoever you’re working with.
Open a Word file
- On the home screen, click Open File, or press ⌘O.
- Choose the .docx file.
The file opens in the editor, with .DOCX beside its title. Writing Desk saves your changes back to the same file automatically.
To have .docx files open in Writing Desk when you double-click them, see Open Word and markdown files in Writing Desk by default.
What carries across
Writing Desk reads the structure of a Word file:
- headings that use Word’s Heading 1, 2 and 3 styles
- bold, italic, underline and strikethrough
- bulleted and numbered lists
- links and tables
Page layout belongs to Word, so margins, fonts, font sizes, alignment and first-line indents are set by Writing Desk’s editor instead.
If your headings come through as body text
Headings that were made by enlarging or bolding ordinary text have no heading style for Writing Desk to read. Headings below level 3 also arrive as body text.
Put the cursor in each heading and press ⌥⌘1, ⌥⌘2 or ⌥⌘3. When you save, the headings are written with proper Word heading styles, so they’ll show as headings in Word too.
When you need more
For chapters, comments, Story Plotter and version history, turn the file into a project from the project control at the bottom of the sidebar. Your original .docx stays where it is. See Turn a document into a project.