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Technology · October 26, 2020

Reasons for Corrupt MS Word Documents | Ways to Recover Word Document

Searching for a way to recover MS Word documents? Then read this blog, we have discussed some of the reasons and methods for word file recovery.  First, let us discuss some reasons behind the MS Word file corruption. 

Reasons for MS Word file corruption-

Before discussing the methods of Word file recovery, first, let us discuss some of the reasons that lead to Word file corruption. There can be several reasons that result in the corruption of word file some of them are described below-

  • Excessive File Size: Oversized documents are more prone to corruption and get inaccessible if handled properly. Also, word documents of large size are difficult to recover. 
  • Wrong File Format: You will face issues if you try to open an old Word file with the latest version of MS Word. 
  • Problems with Features- The MS Word has feature names as “Track Changes”. This feature prompts the Word software to write more frequently. The document gets corrupt if you move images, apply frequently formatting, or using other advanced features. 
  • Malware or Virus infection- If your Word documents get corrupted more frequently then, you should check your storage media. It may be possible that there some bad sectors in your storage media which corrupt the document. So, in this case, you should check and scan your storage or hard drive because it can also affect and damage other data too.  
  • Power Failure or Sudden Closure of program- Improper closing of the program or closing the MS Word while saving is in progress can harm your document. It may cause errors in your document and ultimately corrupts the document.  Another reason is sudden power loss or removal of the storage device while the programs are running. 
  • Incomplete Download- Improper download or incomplete download of documents can corrupt the file. 

How to Recover Word Documents- 

Word file recovery can be a challenging task, and a user faces several issues when he tries to recover word document. So, in this blog, we have described some of the simple yet basic ways to repair documents. 

Method 1: Using the built-in “Open and Repair” Option 

“Open and Repair” is a built-in utility and it comes in all versions of MS Office. It is one of the easy yet simple methods to recover word documents. You just have to click the “Open and Repair” option and the rest of the work is done by the Word program itself. 

  1. Open MS Word program, then click on the “File” then “Open” button. 
  2. Further click on “Computer” then “Browse” option, and go to the location where the corrupt file is saved.
  3. Once the file is located then select the file with a single click
  4. From the drop-down option of the “Open” button click on the “Open and Repair” option. 
  5. Once you click this option, a repair process will start, and your document will open. 

This method is simple to execute, but with this, you can remove only minor corruption, and this option becomes ineffective in case of major corruption. 

Method 2: Using Insert Option- 

If you cannot recover word documents by the first method then you can use the “Insert” option for word file recovery. With this option, you can directly insert the documents without any issue. 

  • Open MS Word, click on “New” and select “Blank document”. 
  • Click on the “Insert” tab, then on the top right corner select “Insert Object”.
  • A pop will appear on the screen, browse and select the corrupt document, and then click on the “Insert” option. 
  • All the text contents of the word file will appear. 

You will be able to view the text contents of the damaged Word file. There are other methods as well to fix the damaged Word file. 

Method 3: Using the “Recover Text” Option- 

You can use the “Recover Text from Any File” feature to recover text from the corrupt document. This feature is offered by Microsoft and with this, you can recover your important text from the corrupt documents. Before using this method you should take a backup of that document because this feature will remove all the formatting along with fields, images, and other non-text items. 

  1. Go to the “File” tab, then click “Open” and browse the required file that needs to be repaired.
  2. From the “All files” option, browse and select “Recover text from any file”. 
  3. Once you select the option, then all your text will be collected. 

Method 4: Using Word Recovery Tool Option-

If you cannot recover the word documents by the above option then you should use the MS Word repair tool. With this tool, you can easily recover word document without any issue. The tool is 100% secure and there is no data alteration or data loss during the word file recovery process. You can also recover multiple MS Word files without any problem. 

Precautions-

Corruption of documents can happen anytime, there is no document that is untouched from the corruption. So, it is recommended that you should take the backups of your crucial data.