How to Fix Damaged & Corrupt Word 2007 Documents – Part 2

This article provides advanced Troubleshooting steps if your damaged document still does not open. It describes how to identify a damaged document and how to recover the text contained in a document.

Method 1: Open the damaged document in draft mode without updating links

Step 1: Configure Word 2007

1. Start Word 2007
2. On the View tab, click Draft in the Document Views group.
3. Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Word Options.
4. In the Display document content section, click to select the Draft font and Picture placeholders check boxes under Advanced options for working with Word.
5. In the General section, click to clear the Update automatic links at Open check box under Advanced options for working with Word. Then, click OK.

Step 2: Open the damaged document

1. Start Word 2007.
2. Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Open.
3. Click the damaged document, and then click Open.

If you can open the document, close the document and then reopen it by using Method 6, and repair the document. Otherwise go to Method 2.

Method 2: Insert the document in a new document

Step 1: Create a new blank document

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click New.
2. Click Blank document, and then click Create.

Note You may have to re-apply some formatting to the last section of the new document.

Step 2: Insert the damaged document into the new document

1. On the Insert tab, click Insert Object, and then click Text From File.
2. In the Insert File dialog box, locate and then click the damaged document. Then, click Insert.

Note You may have to reapply some formatting to the last section of the new document.

Method 3: Create a link to the damaged document

Step 1: Create blank document

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click New.
2. Click Blank document, and then click Create.
3. In the new document, type Does This Work! .
4. Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Save.
5. Type Rescue link, and then click Save.

Step 2: Create link

1. Select the text you typed in step 1c.
2. On the Home tab, click Copy in the Clipboard group.
3. Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click New.
4. Click Blank document, and then click Create.
5. On the Home tab, click the arrow on the Paste button in the Clipboard group, and then click Paste Special.
6. Click Paste link, click Formatted Text (RTF).
7. Click OK.

Step 3: Change the link to the damaged document

1. Right-click the linked text, point to Linked Document Object, and then click Links.
2. In the Links dialog box, click the file name of the linked document, and then click Change Source.
3. In the Change Source dialog box, click the document that you cannot open, and then click Open.
4. Click OK to close the Links dialog box. Note The information from the damaged document will appear if there was any recoverable data or text.
5. Right-click the linked text, point to Linked Document Object, and then click Links.
6. In the Links dialog box, click Break Link.
7. When you receive the following message, click Yes: Are you sure you want to break the selected links?

Method 4: Use the “Recover Text from Any File” converter

Note If you use the “Recover Text from Any File”, all document formatting, graphics, fields, drawing objects, and any other items that are not text are lost.
However, field text, headers, footers, footnotes, and endnotes are retained as text.

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Open.
2. In the Files of type box, click Recover Text from Any File(*.*).
3. Click the document from which you want to recover the text.
4. Click Open.

After the document is recovered by using the “Recover Text from Any File” converter, there is some binary data text that is not converted.
This text is usually at the start and end of the document.
You can delete this binary data text before you save the file as a Word document.