Best Ways to Repair Corrupt MS Word File

Amy Dennis

Dec 21, 2020 • Filed to: Recover & Repair Files • Proven solutions

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Part 1: How to Repair a Word File without a Software

You can easily lose your temper when an important file gets damaged in a way you cannot access it by any means. There are a couple of things you can do to repair a Word document. If however, none of these seem to help, then go directly to Part 3. We'll discuss there a professional Word document repair tool that will eventually help you repair corrupted Word files with no fuss and no muss.

1. Stop making hasty assumptions

You should never rush into assuming your document is corrupt. Perhaps your system or Microsoft Word itself causes the failure. Good advice would be trying to open the suspected document form another computer even before thinking to restore data or attempting a repair operation to check the document's integrity.

2. Make copies of afflicted documents

I am not teaching you a trick here, but rather give you a safety stock tip. If I were you, I would surely make a copy of the corrupt document and save it on removable device media, just in case something worst happens to that file. No matter what happens next, you can rest assured, and have a peaceful sleep at night.

3. Check for online copies

Sometimes if you have sent an email containing that particular file to one of your colleagues, you'll hopefully be able to retrieve that copy. All you have to do is access the Sent mail folder and look for the email, or simply use the search feature to find it.

4. Use CHKDSK

Press "Windows" + "R" keys simultaneously and type "CHKDSK". Doing this will check your system for possible errors. You need to know that sometimes your system is the one causing errors. If anything is found, the system will try to fix it. Some even say that CHKDSK can even fix your corrupted files. Do it and find out yourself.

5.Export to different formats

Exporting your damaged file to a different format will most of the time help you fix the problem. The explanation is pretty simple: using an "RTF" or "TXT" file will remove document dependency upon Word components that may cause errors.

6.Raw text reformatting

The previous method is quite effective. However, if the document is inaccessible, you'll be incapable of exporting it to a different format. What you could do is use any other text processor to open the corrupted document. Now you should be able to save the text to a "txt" format.

7. Make use of the Word's built-in tools

Microsoft Word has a build-in text convertor that could recover your document. Follow this path: File> Open> Select your document>Select "Recover Text from Any File" within the "Open" button drop-down menu. Please note that you'll lose text formatting and that you can only apply this method to old Word documents (MS 97-2003)

8. Launch auto-repair manually

Microsoft Word has an auto-repair protocol that launches when a corrupted file is detected. However, you can force the auto-repair function by launching it manually. Click File>Open> Click "Browse">Select a file> Click the "Open" little arrow button> Select the "Open and Repair" option from the drop-down menu.

9. Find the shadow copy of your document

Windows Vista, 8, and 10 have a nice feature called "Shadow" copy which saves copies of your files. Right-click on any document and click "Properties". Navigate to the "Previous Versions" tab and select any version. Click the "Restore" button.

10.Fix the file header

They say one of the most common Word errors is related to the header of the document. Replacing the header of the corrupted document with one of a document of good integrity will most probably solve your problem.

Part 2: Repair Corrupt MS Word file with Repair Program

1. An overview of Word Repair Program

There are these documents that cannot be fixed easily, thus you need to find a Word document repair tool that can help you address this problem. Stellar Phoenix Word Repair is a professional tool that uses a completely safe algorithm that extracts data even from the most corrupted documents. This tool can repair Word documents and at the same time keep the initial text, images, fonts, headers, footers, and so on. You can recover documents created in Word 2016 to Word 2000. Let's find more about it in the next sections.

Microsoft Word Repair Tool

• Word Repair Tool can safely repair corrupted Word files while preserving the original style and formatting of the document.
• It has a search function that helps you quickly locate your files even if you don't know their exact location.
• After you have selected and eventually scanned a document, you can preview it in three different modes.
• Word Repair is a Word document repair tool designed to fix almost all the word documents corruption errors.
• You can choose between three different recovery modes: "Simple Repair", "Advanced Repair" and "Raw Recovery". One of these recovery methods will surely help you repair corrupted Word files.
• Repairs corrupt MS Word file created in MS Word 2013, 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002, and 2000
• Supports Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, 2003, XP, 2000, and NT

Download Windows Version

 

The interface is designed for any user both advanced and amateur, and the support is complete and comprehensive. If you are the kind of person that needs reports and logs, you can do that with this Word document repair tool.

2. Step by step to repair corrupt MS Word files

Before proceeding any further with this tutorial please download and install this program by accessing this link. After everything is set follow us through:

Step 1 Launch Word Repair Tool, in the dashboard area, it displays the file selection interface. From the "Look in" drop-down menu select the targeted drive and click the "Select folder" button;

Step 2Select a folder, and tap the "Ok" button to continue; tap the "Scan" button after you have selected a file from the results table, and hold on a few seconds;

Step 3 The system shows the recovered file; you can preview it and choose to save;

Step 4In the saving window that has just appeared, select a destination file by clicking the "Select New Folder" option;

Tips:

• When you want to repair Word documents with Word Repair, please close any Word session, so this Word file repair tool programs will not interfere with each other and create conflicting situations;
• If you are using external devices to store your documents, make sure you are always safely removing the cord when trying to disconnect it from the computer;
• Never remove a USB while transferring a Word document form the computer, or to the computer. This could produce data corruption;
• If you don't want to ever have to repair corrupted Word files you need to back up your data regularly.