Go to the Firefox settings page and scroll down to the Applications section. In that table, there will be a list of content types and their default actions. You would be looking for either the Word Document, Microsoft Word, DOC or DOCX content types.

Hope this helps.

See also:

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/change-firefox-behavior-when-open-file

Hey Wesley,

Thanks for your quick reply and suggestion. That's what I've done before and, when I download the .docx file, I get a window that asks what Firefox should do with the file, i.e. open or save, and there is a box I checked that offers the option to "Do this automatically for files like this." However, the .docx file never opens automatically. I always have to click to open the file. Is that how it is supposed to work or shouldn't the file open automatically as offered?

Rick

An automatic action is associated with a specific MIME type.

You can check the action for this file extension in the handlers.json file in the Firefox profile folder and possibly open this file in a Firefox tab to inspect the file with the JSON viewer.

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Tools/JSON_viewer

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.

• Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Folder/Directory:
  Windows: Open Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data