How to Open and Edit Word Files in Google Drive

This morning I received an email from a friend of mine who needed some help opening a Word (Docx) file in Google Drive. Google recently made a slight change to how this is done. And since it threw off my friend who is a fairly savvy Google Drive user I thought that there are probably others who have or will have the same question.

To open a Word (Docx) file in Google Drive after it has been uploaded to your account click the check box next to the file name. After clicking the check box you have two options. Option 1 is to right-click on the file name. Option 2 is to use the "more" menu at the top of your Google Drive home. Either way you will have an option to select "open with Google Docs." See the screen captures below for details.

Option 1:

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Option 2:

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If you don't want to go through the process outlined above for every Word file uploaded to your Google Drive account you can enable automatic conversion of documents. See the screen capture below for directions.

Enabling automatic conversion on upload:

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