How to Recover Corrupt Word Documents in Different Ways

Users face doc file corruption issues which occur due to power failure, abrupt system shutdown, virus attacks, corrupt storage media, corrupted Windows OS, corrupted Windows Registry, and so on. While opening such files, they shows an unusual behavior such as displaying an incorrect layout, formatting, repeated line-breaks, gibberish characters, and error messages. To minimize data disaster, you can try possible ways that can be very helpful for you.

Resolution:

These are numerous methods to recover a corrupted word document. You should create a backup of your important doc file to get rid of any possible issue.

Save Document to another File Format:

• Open the corrupted doc file with Microsoft Word
• Save the file to another file format such as Rich Text Format (.rtf)
  
• Close the document and reopen the file in Microsoft Word
• Save it as a new Word document (.doc)

Use a shadow copy of the document:

Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 have the capability to create shadow copies of some documents. You should make sure whether a shadow copy of your Word document exists or not, you can check it by right-clicking it and selecting Properties from the popup menu. In the Properties dialog, select the Previous Versions tab and select one of the available versions as below:

• The Previous Versions tab appears only when your hard drive is formatted with NTFS.
• Before using the shadow copy feature, you must first configure it.
• You must be careful that a shadow copy will not be as complete as a created backup.

Open the File in WordPad and create new doc file:

• Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, select WordPad
• From the File menu, click Open and select the damaged document
  
• The word document may have some random binary strings. Delete all characters that do not belong to the document
• On the File menu, click Save As
• In the File Name box, type a new filename and save it as a (.doc) format
• Restart Word
• Open the newly saved file and re-save it as a word document

Copy all except the last paragraph mark to a new document:

• Open the corrupted doc file with Microsoft Word
• Press CTRL+END, and then press CTRL+SHIFT+HOME
• If your document contains section breaks, copy only the text between the sections breaks.
• Click Normal on the View menu.
• Copy and paste the content into a new document

Configure auto recovery option (MS Office 2007):

• Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Word Options.
• In the Navigation Pane, click Save.
  
• In the AutoRecover file location box, note the path, and then click Cancel.
  
• Close Word.
• Look for files whose names end in .asd (AutoRecover files).
  
• If you find the Word document that you are looking for, double-click it to open it.
• Save it immediately.

Warning: The AutoRecover feature of MS Word performs as an emergency backup when an error occurs. Some errors can interfere with creating an AutoRecover file and AutoRecover feature is not a substitute for saving the document.

These above given methods may be helpful for you. But, if doc file is severely corrupted then you may not get desired result with these methods. So, you should look for a third party Word file recovery tool. Kernel for Word repair tool is a professional word file recovery tool which performs in a proficient way and recovers every bit of Word file data accurately. Read more http://www.repairdocfile.com/