Microsoft Office 2007 Files Downloading as .Zip Files

A colleague IMed me earlier today. She was wondering why her .xlsx document was downloading as a strange .zip file. She had uploaded it into the content management system correctly, but when she tried to test it out, the file looked corrupted.

Albert did some digging around and figured that the Microsoft Office 2007 files extensions were not recognized by Apache. So downloading files like .xlsx, .docx, .pptx, etc. will translate to file.zip instead. I did some further browser testing and noticed this problem only appears in IE browsers. It works perfectly in Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.

To fix this problem, you would need to add the extensions to the Apache config file.

Step 1: Make sure you back up your configuration file (httpd.conf in Apache) or (apache2.conf in Apache2)

Step 2: Search for the section with the AddType keywords.

Step 3: Add the following lines:


# MIME type fix
AddType application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet .xlsx
AddType application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document .docx
AddType application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.slideshow .pptx


If you load other Microsoft Office 2007 files on your Apache web server, you may want to add additional file extensions.

Thanks for figuring it out Albert! That solved the mystery behind two work tickets today.

Sources: Albertech.net, MS Office 2007 File Extensions at WebmasterWorld

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