I have a fairly big (309 kB) .doc file that I cannot open anymore. In OpenOffice as well as MS Word, I get an error message informing me that the file is in the wrong format (I run Swedish versions of these programs, so the exact error message wouldn’t be useful to you). Is there any method/software for retrieving all or some of the information in the file?
I’m not entirely sure, but feel free to email me the file if you wish. I’ll see if Word XP can open it on my system. Assuming it does, I can save it as .TXT or whatever you like.
Thanks! I’ve sent it now.
Got it. Email back atcha!
Start Word, then under File Open, select the file type “Recover text from any file” and open your document. You’ll lose all of your formatting and there will probably be gibberish interspersed with your text, but you should be able to get your text back.
did QED make it work?
Sometime when my MS Word won’t open a file, if I start a new file, then go Insert file, and insert the file that MS Word doesn’t like, i’ll get the exact file with formatting and everything.
If QED made it work, try this next time.
If none of the above advice works, you can also try opening the doc in a basic text editor, which basically has the same effect as recovering text from within Word: lots are gargbled characters and formatting information, along with the rest of the document. On mac OS X, you can use text edit to open .doc files faily well. On PC, search a download site for file preview or format converting programs. I haven’t used a PC in a while, but I know that there are many that can open and convert word documents. Most likely, you will not loose much of your document.
Also, it is never a bad idea if working on an important document to save back up versions in case the main file gets corrupted or trashed.
This hasn’t happened for me for a few years now, don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but when it did occur I could always fix it by creating a copy of the file, deleting the original and opening the copy, which would open as read only. Edit and save under another name.
I tried all the other suggestions in this thread, just for kicks.
Recover Text from Word: Nope.
Notepad: Yes, but a nearly unreadable mess.
Wordpad: A completely unreadable mess.
Make a copy to open instead: Nope.
The only thing I found that worked well is a program called WordFix. This successfully recovered the text, and claims it can usually recover formatting and graphics too, though I haven’t really tried it out fully. The demo version likes to remind you that it is a demo, by replacing some text with the words DEMO DEMO DEMO every now and again, though.
You ignored my insert>file in MS Word suggestion, or was that included in your “recover text from word”?
No, that was indeed an oversight. Just for you, I tried it just now, but no soap. Whatever the source of the error in this particular file, it’s very strange. The error I get when I try to open it normally is something like “Can’t find file or path”. It then suggests I use the Open command and browse for the file. Which is what I did in the first place. Weird.
DOC files are very corruptable. Most users make the mistake of trying to recover documents. What usually happens is something made your computer shut out MS Word. Now Word is trying to recover a file. You should hit NO. Most people hit YES, they want to recover the file. Why would you want to? Whatever corrupted the file is NOW part of the file when you went to recover it. If you hit NO you would have lost data but the corruption isn’t there.
You can try linking it by opening a blank word document and link the documents together. You may be able to get data out but not formatting.
I’ve done this a lot and it will even pin point were the corruption occurred.
On a related note, what other programs will open OpenOffice files (.swx extensions?)
-let it be known that the introduction to OpenOffice and the freedom from Word is one of the greatest reasons I am thankful for this board-