Updated on March 31, 2020

Nothing is more frustrating than our important Word document on which we had put lots of efforts and spent more time, getting corrupt and refusing to open in a Word application. When a Word document .doc or .docx file gets corrupt, it can't be opened, thereby making it impossible to edit and print out. Usually, a Word file gets corrupt due to many reasons, which we will see in the later part of the article. Also, we provide you a solution to open corrupt Word document and fix the issue. To know how to, continue reading..!

So if you ever had an important document file got corrupted and not able to open it, no need to despair. The best solution to deal with such corruption issue is to keep appropriate backups of important document files on some reliable external storage drives. However, only few peoples follow this precaution. In case backup is not available, then here are few things which you can try when dealing with corrupt Word document.

Method 1: Use Open and Repair Feature

Microsoft Word 2003 and later versions offers an option called “Open and Repair”, which allows users to repair their corrupt Word document file. A user just needs to select a file using Open dialog box, and choose “Open and Repair” option from the Open drop down list (from bottom right corner). This option fixes your corrupt Word file and opens the file, but this feature isn’t necessarily foolproof i.e. Open and Repair feature doesn’t work on severely corrupt Word files or problematic documents.

Method 2: Save file in another format

You can make use of this method, if you are unable to fix Word corruption from first method, this method will recover your Word contents as much as possible. To do this, just “Save” your document in .txt or .htm or .html. After which you can open your corrupt Word document on notepad or on web browser, from where you can retrieve contents from the Word file.

However the only disadvantage with this method is that, you lose all Word formatting such as bullets, font style, font size, numbers, and indention etc of your Word document.

Method 3: Yodot DOC Repair Tool to Open and Repair Corrupt Word File

If after following the above mentioned procedures, if you are still not able to open your corrupt Word document then you need to make use a third party utility such as Yodot DOC Repair to repair and open your Microsoft Word file. This repair utility effectively fixes and opens your Word document file; the best thing about the software is it doesn’t modify the source Word file during the repair process. The tool uses powerful mechanism which provides assured recovery of normally or severely corrupt Word document files. Furthermore opens corrupt file created on any Microsoft Word versions like Word 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007 and 2010.

How to Open a Corrupt Word Document with Yodot DOC Repair?

• Download and install the free trial edition of the software on your Windows desktop / laptop
• Use “Browse” button to select your corrupt Word document
• Click on “Repair” button to start the repair process
• Monitor the repair process by looking at the progress bar
• After completion the application shows a confirmation message saying, file repaired successfully
• Use “Preview” option to open and view your repaired Word file
• At last, use “Save” button to save your repaired document file to your desired location