You’ve spent hours, maybe even days, working on a Word document. After an update you can no longer open the file and you can read that an error has occurred. Is everything irretrievably lost? No, you can repair a damaged Word document.
Solution 1: In Word itself
The following recovery methods may cause formatting or some headers and footers to be lost, but the most important thing is to get the text back.
Open Word and then click To leaf through†In the window To open you select the damaged document, but you do not open it yet. Next to the button To open there is an arrow pointing downwards. Click on this and use the combination command Open and Restoreâ€
If that doesn’t work, there’s a second way in Word. Open Word and create a new blank document. Then go to the tab Insert and choose you in the group Text in front of Object†below Object can you have the option Text from file to use.
Now select the damaged file. This should cause the text of the corrupted file to appear in the new blank document.
Solution 2: Via Google Docs
The two office suites Microsoft Office and Google Docs work together smoothly. Sometimes Google Docs can even do things that Word can’t. Upload the damaged document to Google Docs. Open Google Drive and right click on the file. Choose the assignment Open with and then select the command Google Docsâ€
If all goes well, you’ll have the text back. Then you can download this file as a Word file with the command File / Download / Microsoft Word†The result is a doc file, but you can easily convert it to the docx format in Word.
Solution 3: Visualization Tool
You can also use the Microsoft Office Visualization Tool try (direct download). Install the app. This technical software was originally designed to inspect the code of a file, but it also has a handy repair function.
Open the app and select File / Open data file†Select the damaged file and click Tools / Repair and Defragment†Finally you choose File / Save Data File As… Name the recovered file and open it with Word.
