Error opening Word file: causes, problem resolution

Unfortunately, even the latest versions of the "Office" periodically work incorrectly. An error when opening a Word file can occur at the most unexpected moment, even if only a couple of minutes ago you were quietly working with the document. And all would be nothing, but what if it contains important and valuable information? Consider the possible causes of the problem and ways to restore such files.

Why does the error occur?

When you try to open the document, you will see an alert on the screen that the application can not read the file because it is corrupted. At once we will tell: it can occur, even if you did not do anything with the document and worked, as usual. As a rule, something happens from this list:

1. The document contains a large number of tables, figures and formulas. An error when opening a Word file can occur if, for some reason, the codes of these elements have been incorrectly written (in other words, the program can not understand what to show at all).
2. Problems are associated with various formatting elements. For example, with those that were created by using additional applications and add-ins on another computer.
3. The file was not saved correctly (not in the format).

Clicking on the "Details" button, you can get more accurate information - at which point in the document (row and column numbers) there are problems. True, inexperienced users will not help much. Therefore at once we will pass to how it is possible to open the damaged text file.

Recovering a document with Word

Few people know that in the text editor from Microsoft there is a function to fix corrupted files. Therefore, if a Word error occurs when trying to open a file, you should first try to restore the document by standard means. What do I need to do?

1. Close the error message box.
2. Run "Word" from the "Start" menu or by using the shortcut on the Desktop.
3. Go to the "File"> "Open" menu and search through the "Explorer" document that you want to restore. Please note that you do not need to open it!
4. Select the file.
5. Find the arrow button at the bottom of the window, near the "Open" button.
6. A drop-down list will appear on the screen. In this case, we are interested in the item "Open and restore".

Now, if everything is fine, the document will open and appear in the standard mode.

Important nuance: on the screen you will also see a message stating that some changes were made to the content during the restore process. By clicking on the "Show Fixes" button, you will see a list of the changed items. Be sure to see what the program has fixed, in order to manually correct the file.

Then you need to close the window and save the recovered document. After this, the error when opening the Word file will stop appearing. But what if you did not get access to the document in this way?

Recovery using a backup converter

Great, if this small utility is installed on your computer. This means that when you save a document in memory, it is also backed up. And now we will try to extract an undamaged version of the document:

1. Start the editor using the Start menu.
2. Choose File> Open .
3. At the bottom of the window that opens, there will be a list of "File Types" (to the left of the "Cancel" button). Click on the arrow and open a list of all the options.
4. If the converter is installed, you will see the line "Restoring text from any file (*. *)".
5. Choose this option and try to open the required file again.

If the error when opening a Word 2003 (or other version) file has disappeared, the document will open. However, the next time you start, you may see the message "The table in the document is corrupted." To fix this, you need to highlight the problematic fragment, and then select the "Table"> "Convert"> "Table to Text" menu .

If even after this, errors occur, check all the tables in the document and see if there are cells and lines in them that contain too much text. Also, problems can occur if an incomplete table is present in the document.

Changing the Protected View Settings

Let's consider one more variant. It can work if the program does not open a Word file that was downloaded from the Internet. The system automatically blocks the launch of documents that it considers potentially dangerous. You can disable the protection in the following way:

1. Start "Word" and go to the "File"> "Options" menu .
2. In the window that appears, the main tabs are on the left. We need the "Security Management Center" section.
3. In the "Center" go to the "Protected View" tab.
4. Uncheck all the items that are responsible for opening documents in a restricted mode.
5. Save the changes, restart the program and try to open the file again.

Use this method with caution, and only if you are 100% sure of the security of the file.

Removing Microsoft Word Add-ins

Sometimes the problem is not with a specific document, but with a program in general. In practice, an error when opening a Word file often occurs because of installed add-ins. In this case, the message "The program stopped working" is displayed on the screen.

Our task is to disable all add-ins, including the one that causes errors. For this you need:

1. Start MS Word. Most likely, there will be a message on the screen that a serious error occurred during the last run, and the program will offer to start the editor in safe mode. Click "OK".
2. Go to the menu "File"> "Options . "
3. Go to the "Add-ons" tab.
4. At the bottom of the window you will see the inscription "Management: COM Add-ins". Click on the "Go ..." button next to it.
5. In the appeared window, you must select the checkboxes for all add-ins, then click "Delete" and confirm the action.

After that, you need to close the program and try to open the problem document again.

Restoring the format

In many cases, the error when opening a Word 2003-2013 file is due to improper saving. To open the document, you have to restore the correct format.

Let's try to transfer the working information into a new, undamaged document:

1. Create a new empty file in the Word and save it.
2. Close the program and go to "Explorer".
3. Find the created file and turn it into an archive by changing the extension (you just need to rename the document and enter .zip instead of .doc).
4. The same thing you need to do with the file you want to restore.
5. Open the documents using any archiver.
6. Extract the folder "word" from the corrupted document and copy it to the archive with the new document, replacing all the files.
7. Rename the file from .zip to .doc or .docx back.

Now try to open the document in the "Word". The program will report that it is damaged and will prompt you to restore it. After that, the contents of your file will be displayed.

Manual code editing

Just note that this option is suitable only for advanced users, at least with basic knowledge of HTML. When a Word error occurs when trying to open a file, the message about it always contains information about which part of the document the problem is (line and column number). That is, if you get into the file code, you can find and fix or delete this fragment. How to do it?

1. Open the document as an archive (see previous paragraph).
2. Locate and extract the document.xml file.
3. Open the document in Notepad or Notepad ++. It is desirable that the text editor tracks the cursor position - shows the line and column numbers.
4. Find the fragment that causes the error, and edit it.
5. Upload the updated document.xml to the archive instead of the old file. After that, open the document in Word.

It is important to understand the essence of the problem. Most often this is the wrong order of tags in the code. In extreme cases, you can delete part of the text.

Recovering a document using Word Recovery

In addition to Office tools, you can use special programs to fix text files. They use their own algorithms to extract information, so they can often cope with the problem much better than standard tools. The most popular applications of this type are R-Word and Magic Word Recovery.

Helpful Tips

Before you begin to fix the "broken" file, be sure to make a copy of it.

If you can not restore the document in its native format (.doc or .docx), first try saving it as .rtf.

Sometimes when restoring a table on the screen, a warning is displayed that the computer does not have enough memory. In this case, you need to close all programs, folders and files, except for the "Word" itself.