How to open Infopath in .doc format

Question

I have designed an infopath form and published on to my Sharepoint Site. My first question is if I save the customized infopath form on my computer, is it possible to open it without MSOffice installed on the system? Secondly, If an customized infopath form in sent through an email, is it possible for me to save it in .doc format.

Answer 1

1. Infopath forms are just .xml files; so you can open it, but probably will need Infopath desktop help OR using Forms Server at Sharepoint site
2. Again, you'll receive a XML file; you can parse it and transform in any format you want

Answer 2

You can design a view so that it prints directly to a word document. The each view is an XSLT file that is used to transform the xml form data into a particular format. The default view that you get allows infopath to visually display it. You can develop you own XSLT file to transform the data into any format that you wish including a WordML format. In the Infopath 2003 SDK there is a wizard that allows you to convert the infopath View XSLT files to MS Word XML files. The following links should give you some direction on how.

Design a view that is optimized for printing

InfoPath 2003 Software Development Kit (SDK)

Convert an InfoPath 2007 form into a Word 2007 document using XSLT and C#

Having said that I have not tried to save save the data in a Word (Filename.doc) format. I have however used the data on the form to create a PDF file and attach both the pdf file and the xml form data file and email it. and that worked well for but it requires a fully trusted infopath form and code-behind do it.