Methods to Recover & Repair Microsoft Word Document

Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing tool around the all IT users. Users use it to create and store their content, information, chart, document, report, and many more. All we know that files are prone to corruption in this modern age of technology and Microsoft word is not an exception. So it is recommended to backup all your data to avoid data loss. If you want to recover Microsoft word document then the first question comes in mind how the word document was lost in the first place. If the word document has been lost or deleted then you need to recover it no matter it was deleted by mistake or intentionally. If the word document is exist but you are not able to open it then your document is corrupt or damaged and you need to repair it.

How to recover lost or deleted word document? If you are unable to find your word documents on your machine then it might be possible that you have deleted your document by mistakenly or someone has deleted your document intentionally. If you come under above cases then don't worry! You can recover your lost or deleted word document by following methods:

1. Restore from Recycle Bin: When you delete word document from your machine then document does not delete permanently from your machine; it goes under the recycle bin. Recycle bin works as a container for your deleted documents before they are taken to the recycle centers. So try to restore your deleted word document from the recycle bin.

2. Try to Restore from Email: If your desired word document is not in the recycle bin of your machine then try to restore your document from your favorite email-id. It might be possible that you had mailed your document to someone previously.

3. Try Word Recovery Software: If both above methods do not help you then I recommend you to use any 3^rd party word recovery software that meets your requirement and budget. There is plenty of 3^rd party word recovery software available online that claim recovery of lost and deleted word document is possible.

How to repair corrupt or damaged Word document? If your word document exists and you are unable to open it then it might be possible that your document is corrupt or damaged. A corrupt or damaged word document shows unreadable characters on the document or strange error message when you try to open it.

Document is Opening: If your document is opening and showing unreadable characters on the document then try following methods to recover it:

1. Force Open & Repair: When you try to open any word document then MS Word automatically performs Open & Repair feature to repair a Word document when it suspects any problem with the document. However you can also force MS Word to repair the document. Follow below steps to perform manual open & repair on the document.

• Start the MS Word.
• Go-to the File option & click Open.
• A open dialog box will be appear on your screen.
• Now select the document that you want to open and click on the arrow next to the open button.
• Select open & repair

Note: Click on the office button to open a document in Ms Word 2007 & 2010.

2. Save as document in another file format: Try to save as your corrupt word document in another file formats like (.rtf, .txt, .html). After saving the document, try to open newly saved document. If you are able to open it then document was repaired during the file format conversion process and convert back it to the word file format.
3. Create a new document with safe part: If you are able to determine the corruption portion of your document then try to create a new document with the safe part and recreate the damaged portion on the newly create document.

Document is not Opening: If your document is not opening and showing unexpected error message then try following methods to recover it:

1. Try to insert the corrupt document in the new document: Create a new word document and insert the corrupt document into it. You can perform this by following steps:

Create new document-> Insert-> Select File-> Insert corrupt document

2. Try to open the document with WordPad: If problem still persist then try to open the corrupt document using WordPad. Follow below step to open with WordPad:

Open WordPad->Click WordPad File menu-> Open-> Select Corrupt Document-> Open

If you are able to open the corrupt document using WordPad then save the file as word document.

Additional Tips: Here are the some additional tips that help you in recovery of corrupt or damaged Word documents.

Try Open Office: It has been seen that open office is able to open the corrupt MS Word documents without any error messages. Try your luck! It might be possible that you can restore your complete document without any data loss.

Try Word Repair Software: As you have seen in the beginning of the article, there are several word recovery software that can recover lost or deleted word documents same like worddocument repair software that repair corrupt or damaged MS Word files (.doc & .docx). The best part is that most of the software show preview of the corrupt document before actual recovery.