Error: The file <filename>.docx cannot be opened because there are problems with the contents.

Question

I am getting this error with one of my Word document when I am trying to open.

Details:

Illegal Qualified Name Character.

Location: Part: / word/document.xml, Line: 2, Column: 7592694

Some please help me to repair this file.

I have attached the document here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mMTaM_JVS3x2Fb986wKAnIK2OdMBCazl/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=111637184363224351330&rtpof=true&sd=true

Answer 1

As I indicated, they are the only strings tagged as text in the garbled code that I had to delete from the document.xml component of the original document to allow it to be parsed without error and thus be able to open the document when the components were re-archived.

Answer 2

In the document.xml component of a Word document, each segment of the text is preceded by <w:t> tag and the text string is terminated by another tag that would normally be </w:t> In the case of the xml code removed from the document.xml component to allow the document to be opened, it was not always </w:t> that followed the text string, rather another tag as all tags begin with the < character, I have run a macro on the code that was removed and pasted into a Word document (of 1536 pages of single spaced code) to extract each of the </w:t> tags and the characters following each one upto the next "<" character and insert it into a new document.

This is the result of running that macro

<w:t>e

<w:t>a.

<w:t>a.

<w:t>iˈxaɀ"Arial"/>

<w:t>.

<w:t>e

<w:t>a.

<w:t>a

<w:t>a

<w:t>n

<w:t>gu

<w:t>a

<w:t>a

<w:t>Á

<w:t>iˈnal

<w:t>iˈnal

<w:t>iˈnal

<w:t>⟨

<w:t>a

<w:t>a

<w:t>a

<w:t>iˈnal

<w:t>a

<w:t>a

<w:t>a

<w:t>a

<w:t>a

<w:t>n

<w:t>'pɾin

<w:t>a.

<w:t>iˈnal

<w:t>gu

<w:t>gu

<w:t>gu

<w:t>gu

<w:t>gu

<w:t>IPA

<w:t>gu="00456CF3">

<w:t>IPA

<w:t>'pɾin

<w:t>a.

<w:t>e

<w:t>iˈxaɀ"Arial"/>

<w:t>.

<w:t>iˈxa>

<w:t>jar

<w:t>e

<w:t>a

<w:t>ˈa.

<w:t>a >

<w:t>jar

<w:t>8 r>

<w:t>8 r>

<w:t>a

<w:t>a

<w:t>a

<w:t>a

<w:t>a

<w:t>jar

<w:t>jar

<w:t>jar

<w:t>jar

<w:t>jar

<w:t>a >

Nothing more can be recovered from the file.

Answer 3

If Doug can't retrieve the whole document, it's not retrievable. He's the expert here on document repair.

To prevent this in the future, don't edit documents while they are on a USB drive or an unsupported cloud service. Use File>Save As frequently, changing the name slightly. This way you can't lose all (or so much) of your work.

Answer 4

I suspect that your document was saved to a USB Drive or some other form of removable media as the essential document.xml component of it was missing the </w:body></w:document> tags that are required to properly terminate the xml code and at the end of the document, there was a significant amount of completely gabled xml code.

By eliminating the garbled code and inserting the </w:body></w:document> tags, it was possible open the document and I have uploaded it to the following folder of my OneDrive

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AmuIXmFDy-1azRlX2JBMPPp_Nb1x

or

https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AFfYkEw8%2Dn81vXE&id=5AEDCB43615E886B%219881&cid=5AEDCB43615E886B

Let me know when you have retrieved it so that I can delete it from that folder.

Answer 5

Sorry, but that file can't be unzipped, let alone repaired. I recommend you extract whatever text you can. Here is Microsoft's page on recovering damaged documents: How to troubleshoot damaged documents in Word