How do I repair a corrupted Word file?

Potential Causes of DOCX Corruption - Problems saving to USB Devices

**http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/wordcreate/thread/73a1e1b0-e6cf-43b8-a97f-0b01b5c33da3/******

I noticed that it always seem to be the central directory and the last few files which seem to be corrupt. Most likely this is indeed the result of a (failed) delayed write to external media.

Unfortunately, Microsoft tends to put the document.xml file, the most important file in the archive, towards the end thereby making the document 'less' recoverable in my opinion. If document.xml would be the first entry in the archive, I'm convinced that more documents would be recoverable. Losing styles, settings, metadata and perhaps even some graphics is less of an issue than losing the actual text.

I always wondered why Microsoft made that decision. The only 'sensible' reason I could come up with is that it limits the need to rewrite the entire archive whenever you change something to your document. The beginning of your archive (metadata, settings, ...) doesn't change all that often, so no need to rewrite it. But then again, they did introduce the in-place growing mechanismn which they don't use (well they introduce the overhead but don't reap the benefits when they can) which could solve some of these issues (e.g. only require a complete rewrite every 4th or 5th save operation).

Certainly I've seen files with the central directory missing, but that can often be rebuilt, allowing at least partial recovery. I've also seen quite a few files with a block starting at 0x800 having been overwritten, which has wiped out the crucial begining of the document.xml part - the sine qua non, but it is also the largest part so the most likely to be damaged.

I think you are being very kind to Microsoft to suggest there is any rationale to the ordering of parts <g>, I am prepared to believe that there may be a reason for the position of the properties parts - in the same way that the Summary Information streams of the old compound binaries were at the end of the file, but overall I doubt there was any strategy. The standard does not impose the order, so it could never be relied upon anyway. Mind you, the standard does not impose (many) part names, but you try creating a document where the document.xml part has a different name.

As for the growth mechanism, I'm afraid I just think it's totally misplaced - as out-of-date as the old fast save mechanism - and should not have been included in the standard. And I doubt the benefit to be gained from not, in theory, having to rewrite the whole file would be significant on computers equipped to run the applications, and would be offset by the potential for error in keeping track of what had, and had not, changed.

Determining if a Document is Corrupt

**http://word.tips.net/Pages/T003798\_Determining\_if\_a\_Document\_is\_Corrupt.html******

Summary: Think you might have a corrupt document? There is no easy way to tell if this is the case, but there are some things you can do to try to fix the document. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 2007.)

TROUBLE SHOOTING WORD AND DOC CORRUPTION

To learn more information on this topic (and there is quite a bit), refer to the following page at the Word MVP site: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm

http://lounge.windowssecrets.com/index.php?s=965c08f05aa3e2e40cd935247136dfaa&showtopic=197827    Systematic Approach to Behavioral Problems in Word (Word 97/2000) (Woody's Lounge)

Note: While the steps below work in Word 2002 & 2003, each of these versions has a trouble shooting tool that automates the process (except for deleting temp files). You can read about & download the 2002 Support Template and 2003 Support Template. My thanks to Rebel for pointing out these tools.

Document Rescue: Errors on Open How to trouble shoot damaged Word documents - Word 2000 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/826864/en-us

Vivian noted that there are times she suspects that a document may be corrupt, but she doesn't really know for sure. This leads her to wonder if there is an easy way to verify the integrity of a document or to easily tell if a document is corrupt.

How to trouble shoot damaged documents in Word 2007 and in Word 2010 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918429

Article ID: 918429 - Last Review: May 20, 2010 - Revision: 6.0

identify a damaged document in Microsoft Office Word 2007 2010

This article describes how to identify a damaged document in Microsoft Office Word 2007 and in Microsoft Office Word 2010. Additionally, this article includes steps that explain how to recover the text and data that is contained in a document after you have identified the document as damaged.

How can I recover a corrupt document or template – and why did it become corrupt? http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm

Article contributed by Dave Rado and John McGhie

  See Whenever I open a document using File Open all my formatting is gone, and there is garbage at the end).

Corrupt / Damaged DOCX file reader

**http://www.saveofficedata.com/******

This site has several tools for reading damage Office files.

DOCX format is based on ZIP format.  If the ZIP format document is corrupt and cannot be opened in Word 2007, this tool will extract text.

10+ ways to recover a corrupted Word document

**http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=952&tag=nl.e056******

 Date: August 17th, 2009

Author: Brien Posey

Few computer experiences are worse than having a Word document blow up on you. But before you resign yourself to losing the document contents, check out these techniques for salvaging your text.

If you've ever had an important document get corrupted, you know the despair that sets in. You've lost critical information and/or countless hours of work - or so it appears. But hang on: You may not have to accept data loss. Here are some things you can try when you're dealing with a corrupted Word document.

Recovering Corrupt Document Files with StarOffice

**http://word.tips.net/Pages/T001513\_Recovering\_Corrupt\_Document\_Files\_with\_StarOffice.html******