WD2000: Troubleshooting Damaged Documents

ID: Q211634

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

Damaged document files can cause any program to exhibit unusual behavior. Such behavior occurs because the program attempts to make decisions about what to do based on incorrect information in the file.

The best way to protect yourself against document corruption is to keep backup copies of your documents. In the event that you don't have a backup copy of your document, this article provides some troubleshooting procedures you can use to identify and possibly recover a corrupted Microsoft Word for Windows document.


MORE INFORMATION

Identifying a Damaged Document

Damaged documents often exhibit behavior that is not part of the program's design (for example, infinite repagination, incorrect document layout and formatting, unreadable characters on the screen, error messages during processing, system stops responding or crashes when you load or view the file, or any other unusual behavior that cannot be attributed to the normal operation of the program). Some of this behavior can be caused by factors other than document corruption. To help rule out other factors, use the following troubleshooting steps:
If the problem occurs only with a single document or a small group of similar documents after you perform these steps, your document or documents have probably been damaged.

Things to Try If the Document Opens But Shows Unexpected Behavior

Method 1: Save the File to Another Format, and Then Convert It Back to Word

This is the easiest and most complete document recovery method; always try it first. Save the file in Rich Text Format (*.rtf) file format; this format preserves the formatting in your Word document. After you save the file in RTF format, close and re-open the document in Word for Windows, and save it as a Word Document (*.doc). If this method is successful, the file corruption was removed during conversion. If the corruption persists after you save the file in RTF file format, try saving the file in one of the following file formats:
Any other word processing format
Text Only
NOTE: Saving files in Text Only format frequently corrects the document corruption problem; however, all document formatting and graphics are lost. This method requires more reformatting; therefore, use it only after other file formats fail to correct the problem.

Method 2: Copy Everything Except the Last Paragraph Mark to a New Document

Word for Windows associates a wide variety of formatting with the last paragraph mark, especially section and style formatting. If you copy everything except the last paragraph mark to a new document, the corruption may be left behind in the original document. In the new document, reapply the section or style formatting.

NOTE: You can select everything except the last paragraph mark by pressing CTRL+END, and then CTRL+SHIFT+HOME. If your document contains section breaks, copy only the text between the sections breaks (do not copy and paste the section breaks because this may bring the corruption into your new document).

Method 3: Copy the Undamaged Portions of the Document to a New Document

Sometimes you can determine the location of file corruption in your document. In such cases, copy everything except the damaged portion to a new file, and then reconstruct the damaged section of your document.

NOTE: If your document contains section breaks, copy only the text between the sections breaks (do not copy and paste the section breaks because this may bring the corruption into your new document).

Things to Try If the Document Will Not Open

There are several techniques you can use to try to open a document that will not open. Which method you use depends on the nature and severity of the damage to your document and the nature of the behavior exhibited. Although many of these methods succeed regularly, not every damaged document can be recovered.

Method 1: Open the Damaged Word Document in Draft Mode Without Link Updating

Sometimes you can open a document in draft mode without link updating when it will not open otherwise. Use the following steps:

  1. On the View menu, click Normal.


  2. On the Tools menu, click Options.


  3. On the View tab, click to select the Draft Font and Picture placeholders options.


  4. On the General tab, click to clear the Update automatic links at Open check box, and then click OK.


If you are successful in opening the document, you may be able to recover or repair the file by using the steps in the "Things to Try If the Document Opens But Exhibits Unexpected Behavior" section of this article.

Method 2: Insert the Document as a File in a New Document

The final paragraph mark in a Word document contains information about the document. If the document is damaged, you may be able to retrieve the text of the document if you can omit this final paragraph mark.

To access a document but leave its final paragraph mark behind, use the following steps:
  1. Create a new blank document.


  2. On the Insert menu, click File.


  3. In the Insert File dialog box, locate and select the damaged document, and click OK.


NOTE: You may need to reapply some section formatting to the last section of your new document.

Method 3: Open the File by Linking to It

If "Insert the Document as a File in a New Document" (Method 2) doesn't work, try this method. This method allows you to access the document without bringing over the final paragraph mark. In addition, when you create a link, part of the header information is not read.

This method allows you to open the file if this part of the header or if the final paragraph mark is in the damaged area of the document.

Use the following steps to link to a "good" file (a file that has not been corrupted) and then change the link to point to the damaged file:
  1. Create a new document. In the new document, type "This is a Test" and then save the document.


  2. Select the text and click Copy on the Edit menu.


  3. On the File menu, click New.


  4. On the General tab, click Blank Document and click OK.


  5. In the new document, click Paste Special on the Edit menu.


  6. Select Formatted text, click to select Paste link and then click OK.


  7. On the Edit menu, click Links.


  8. In the Links dialog box, select the file name of the linked document and click Change Source.


  9. In the Change Source dialog box, select the document you can no longer open and click Open.


  10. Click OK to close the Links dialog box.

    NOTE: The data/text from the damaged document should appear (provided there was any recoverable data/text).


  11. On the Edit menu, click Links.


  12. In the Links dialog box, click Break Link. When you are prompted with the following message, click Yes.


    13. Are you sure you want to break the selected links?
You can now reformat and save the recovered document.

Method 4: Use the Recover Text from Any File Converter

The Recover Text from Any File converter allows you to extract the text from any file. The file does not have to be a Word file. Using the Recover Text from Any File converter does have its limitations. Document formatting is lost, along with anything that is not of a text nature. Graphics, fields, drawing objects, and so on, are lost. However, headers, footers, footnotes, endnotes, and field text are retained as simple text. In addition, after the document is recovered using the Recover Text from Any File converter, there will be some binary data that could not be converted, primarily at the top and bottom of the document. This binary data needs to be deleted before you reformat and save your file as a Word document.

For additional information about how to use the Recover Text from Any File converter, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q212274 WD2000: How to Recover Text from Any File

Method 5: Open the File in WordPad

When you cannot open a damaged document in Word for Windows (usually because of corruption in the file header), you can strip out the file header and open the file as text. When you strip the header information, all formatting is lost. Th following method strips out the file header information.
  1. Start Microsoft WordPad. In Windows, on the Start menu, point to Programs, point to Accessories, and then click WordPad.


  2. On the File menu, click Open and open the damaged Word document.

    The Word document should now open as a text file. You may see binary (foreign) characters at the beginning and end of the document. You can delete these characters and any other characters that do not belong to your damaged Word document.


  3. On the File menu, click Save As. In the File Name box, type a new file name with a .doc file name extension. Before you click the OK button, note the folder where the file is being saved so you can easily find it when you restart Word.


  4. On the File menu, click Exit.


  5. Restart Word and open the file you saved from WordPad (the file will have the name you gave it in step 3).


  6. On the File menu, click Save As, and save the file in Word Document (*.doc) format.


You can now reformat your new document and add any graphics, fields, and other formatting that your damaged document may have contained.

Additional query words: garbage locked hung stop stopped crashed corrupt frozen nothing damaged damage troubleshoot tshoot corrupted 


Keywords          : kbtshoot kbdta wd2000 
Version           : WINDOWS:2000
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbinfo

Last Reviewed: May 14, 1999