How do I open Microsoft Office 2007 files?

How do I open Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010 files?

The files produced by Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010 are also called Office Open XML, OpenXML, OOXML, .docx, .docm, .xlsx, etc. (other extensions).

OpenOffice.org 3.x can open these files, and save in the Microsoft 2003 or earlier formats. But it cannot save the files in Microsoft 2007 or later formats.

If you experience imperfections with OOo 3.0 or are using an older version of OOo 2.x, you have several options:

Upgrade to the most updated OpenOffice.org version. It's free.
Download odf-converter-integrator.
Use an OpenOffice.org 2.x variant which includes the xmlfilter code: OxygenOffice Professional (review), Your Office Suite
Use OdfConverter integrated with NeoOffice, Novell OpenOffice.org, or Ubuntu OpenOffice.org
Use OdfConverter integrated in any OpenOffice.org in Windows or any Linux with odf-converter-integrator.
Use OdfConverter via the command line (good for automated conversions) in Windows or Linux.
Use Zamzar (review) which converts documents online.
Use the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats even if you do not have any Microsoft Office.
Use Docx2rtf (review).
Use Adobe Buzzword, an online word processor.
Use Office 2007 to convert the document.
Ask whoever sent you the document to use a different format.
As a last resort you can rename a copy of the file to .ZIP filetype, and access the content that way. This is of limited use for Powerpoint & Excel files, and works best for Word documents where the main content is in 'document.xml'.

To view the file correctly, you may also need the new Office 2007 fonts.