A lot of people are confused about what DOCX means. DOCX is a newer and updated version released by Microsoft Office, which has more features than DOC. Microsoft updated DOC to DOCX as a new standard for word processing due to the high competition from certain free formats like ODF and Open Office. Suppose we talk about DOC vs. DOCX files, DOCX files are smaller, lighter, and easy to transfer and read. DOCX is the default extension of the Word 2007 and the later versions. The DOCX file type can be easily opened in older versions as well.