Word says the file is corrupted, recovery steps in order
Word's corruption messages ("Word experienced an error trying to open the file" and its variants) mean the document's internal structure has damage Word cannot parse. Word files are zip packages of XML parts, and the damage is usually in one part, frequently the styles, a table, or an embedded image, while the text itself survives. That is why the recovery ladder starts with routes that read progressively less of the structure.
The fix, in order
- Work on a copy and try Open and Repair. File, Open, select the copy, click the arrow beside Open, choose Open and Repair. Word rebuilds what it can and reports what it had to discard.
- Unblock and relocate the file. If the document came from email or a download, right-click it, Properties, tick Unblock if present. Then copy it to a local folder; a half-synced cloud copy or a failing USB stick presents exactly as corruption.
- Use the Recover Text converter. File, Open, set the file type dropdown to Recover Text from Any File, and open the copy. Formatting is lost, but the raw text of the document comes out, which for most documents is the content that matters.
- Open in Draft view to skip rendering damage. Enable the option in File, Options, Advanced, Show document content: Use draft font in Draft and Outline views, then open the file and switch to Draft view. Damage in floating images and layout objects is bypassed in this view, letting the text be copied out.
- Insert the file into a new document. Create a blank document, Insert, Object, Text from File, and choose the damaged copy. The new document's clean structure hosts the recovered content, and sections too damaged to convert are skipped instead of blocking everything.
- Check for Word's own backups. File, Info, Manage Document lists AutoRecover versions. Also look beside the original for files starting with ~wrd or a Backup of file.wbk, and check Previous Versions in the file's Properties.
If it still happens
If the document matters and every route fails, open the copy as a zip archive (rename a copy to .zip) and read word/document.xml in a text editor: the text is in there in reading order between the markup, recoverable by hand in the worst case. Documents that fail at 0 KB, however, contain nothing to recover; only a backup or the sender's copy helps then.
Common questions
Why do Word files get corrupted? Interrupted saves lead the list: closing the laptop mid-save, a crash, a network drive dropping, or a USB stick removed while writing. Sync conflicts and failing drives account for most of the rest.
Will Open and Repair recover my formatting? Partially. Text recovery is very reliable; complex formatting, tracked changes, and embedded objects may be simplified or dropped, and Word tells you what it removed. Recover the text first, then reapply formatting in the fresh copy.
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