How to Maggie a corrupt Word document, but keep all your tracked changes.

Question

I note that the wonderfully helpful article here on how to "Maggie" a corrupted document (https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/how-can-i-fix-a-corrupt-document-whats-a-maggie/b18bf177-6300-4ab5-b9c9-77a0148a24a1) includes instructions only for saving a document that does not include tracked changes. It uses Word's Copy and Paste functions.

But for those co-writing or editing a document who are working with Track Changes and Comments, the way to Maggie a document is to use Word's Spike function, not Cut and Paste. In Windows, this would go something like this:

• In the corrupt document, turn Track Changes off

1. Ctrl+a
2. Shift+Left Arrow
3. Ctrl+F3 (to spike)
4. Ctr+z (to reverse the spike's deletion)

• In a new blank document, make sure that Track Changes is turned off, choose the appropriate Design style from the Design tab and

1. Ctrl+Shift+F3 (to spike the old document with Track Changes into the new document)
2. F12 (to save to a new file)

Voila! All your tracked changes and comments are now there, along with a (hopefully) usable version of the document.

Answer 1

Whether or not that will work will depend entirely on the form of corruption.  If the corruption is due to mis-matched xml tag errors, it would not even be possible to open the document to follow that procedure.

Answer 2

Agreed. My point was to share how to Maggie a document and keep track changes. For that, you need to do a Spike, not Cut and Paste.