Microsoft Word for Macintosh

File Format
Name	Microsoft Word for Macintosh
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Document Word Processor Microsoft Word for Macintosh
MIME Type(s)	application/msword
PRONOM	fmt/346, x-fmt/1, x-fmt/64, x-fmt/65
Released	1985

This article covers the line of word processing formats used by some early versions of Microsoft Word for Macintosh. The format is sometimes called MCW, though that could cause it to be confused with MacWrite.

Format identification tools consistently treat these formats as distinct from the formats used by other MS Word platforms, though Wikipedia says that Word 4 and 5 for Mac belong to the same format family as Word 1 and 2 for Windows. It's not clear how to reconcile this.

Identification

Files reportedly begin with the following byte sequences:

• v1.0: fe 32 00 ?? 00 00 00 00
• v3.0: fe 34 00 ?? 00 00 00 00
• v4.0: fe 37 00 1c 00 00 00 00
• v5.0: fe 37 00 23 00 00 00 00

Sample files

• MacWAIS User Manual
• FC Mac Client User Manual
• Mac Word 5.1 example
• dexvert samples — document/wordMac