How do you know you're dealing with file corruption? If you somehow managed to open your document, and the formatting is messed up, you can see a lot of unreadable characters and possibly error messages, you know something isn't right. Sometimes you can't even open the document.
The Microsoft Word built-in repair tool can most of the time repair Word documents. However, this feature doesn't always do the job, and in that case, you need to find a good Word document repair tool like specialized software. This article describes how to repair corrupted Word files using both the Word built-in repairing function and a Word document repair tool. Read further to learn more about this subject.
Part 1: How to Repair Corrupted Word File in Microsoft Word 2016
1. Wondershare Repairit
A Word document repair tool is a professional utility that allows users to recover corrupt Word files featuring different repairing modes. Wondershare Repairit - File Repair is extremely easy to use and it allows the user to repair corrupted Word files while preserving the original formatting and layout. It doesn't matter if your word version is 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007, and earlier versions.
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Repairs MS Word files by preserving the original header/footer, text, font (name, size, and color), comments, auto shapes, pictures, charts, controls, fields, captions, and hyperlinks, etc.
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Repairs .docx files that are inaccessible, or start repagination automatically, or show unreadable characters.
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Simple Repair repairs '.DOCX' files with minor corruption.
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Displays the preview of files in three different formats after completion of the scan process.
2. Repair Corrupted Word file with Repair Software
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The utility is launched in the dashboard area, and the initial dialog box is shown; select "File Repair" in the "More Types Repair" section, and click the "Add" button to upload the damaged Word file.
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Select a file from the results box, and click the "Repair" button;
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Preview the repaired Word file, and click the "Save" button on the ribbon.
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The Save Documentwindow is shown. Select a desired save location, the format, and click "Save All";
This video can help you fix your corrupted excel files with a step-by-step guide.
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Part 2: Force Word to Repair a Corrupted Word File
Although Microsoft Word launches an auto-repair when a corrupted document is detected, you can also repair a Word document by launching it manually. Follow our guide to doing it:
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Click "File" on the top menu;
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Select "Open" on the vertical menu;
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Click the "Browse" button; a new window opens. Select a document;
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Tap the little arrow on the "Open" button, and select "Open and Repair" from the drop-down menu;
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Word is now launching the auto-repair function.
That's how you can manually repair corrupted Word files using a built-in Word Repair tool. You may have noticed that in this tutorial no word document repair tool has been used.
Tips:
1. If you tried to open a Word document and your computer stopped responding, press "CTRL + ALT + DEL" simultaneously to open Task Manager. Right-click on any Microsoft Word instance and tap "Terminate". Launching Word again will bring up the "Document Recovery" task pane;
2. The quickest way to repair Word document is to change save it in a different format. Right-click on it and tap rename. Type a different file extension like "rtf" or "txt". This method is not guaranteed to always work;
3. Sometimes using a different text processor to open a corrupted document might be a winning method. However, applying this method for "docx" might not work at all;
4. Open the "CHDSK" utility by pressing "Windows" key + "R" simultaneously, paste the phrase and hit "enter". If there is a problem indeed, the system may be able to fix your document.
If you accidentally deleted your word documents, you can try Recoverit Data Recovery Software and check how to recover lost word documents here.
