Seven strokes to recover damaged Word documents

When you try to open a Word document, if the system does not respond, the possible cause is that the document is damaged. In this case, try the methods described below to recover all or part of your losses.

1. Automatic Recovery of unsaved changes

Word provides the "Automatic Recovery" function to help users retrieve information that has not been saved when a program encounters problems and stops responding. In fact, after you have to restart your computer and Word without saving your work results, the system opens the document recovery task pane (figure 1 ), all files recovered when the program stops responding are listed. The file name is followed by the Status Indicator, showing the operations performed on the file during the recovery process. "Original file" refers to the source file manually saved last time; "recovered" refers to the files that have been recovered during the recovery process or saved during the "Automatic Recovery" saving process.

The document recovery task pane allows you to open a file, view the repairs, and compare restored versions. Then, you can save the best version and delete other versions, or save all open files for future preview. However, the document recovery task pane is a new feature provided by Word XP. In previous versions, Word directly opens and displays automatically recovered files.

2. Manually open the recovery file

When you restart Word after a serious fault or similar problem, the program automatically restores any files. If the file is not opened for some reason, you can open it as follows:

1. on the "common" toolbar, click the "open" button;

2. In the folder list, locate and double-click the folder that stores the recovery file. For Windows 2000/XP operating systems, the location is usually the "C: documents and settings \ Application DataMicrosoftWord" folder. For Windows 98/Me operating systems, the location is usually "C: windowsApplication DataMicrosoftWord "folder;

3. Click "all files" in the "file type" box ". The names of each recovered file are displayed as "Automatic Recovery" to save the file name "and the program file extension (figure 2 );

4. Click the name of the file to be restored, and then click open.

3. "Open and fix" files

Word XP provides a new method to restore damaged documents. The procedure is as follows:

1. on the "file" menu, click the "open" command;

2. In the search range list, click the drive, folder, or Internet location that contains the file to be opened;

3. In the folder list, locate and open the folder containing files;

4. Select the file to be restored;

5. Click the arrow next to the Open button and then click open and repair (Figure 3 ).

4. Restore text from any file

Word provides a file converter for "Recovering text from any file", which can be used to extract text from any file. To use the File Converter to restore corrupted text in a file, perform the following steps:

1. on the "Tools" menu, click the "options" command, and then click the "General" tab;

2. Confirm to select the "Confirm conversion when opening" check box (figure 4) and click "OK;

3. On the "file" menu, click the "open" command;

4. In the file type box, click Restore text from any file ". If you do not see "Restore text from any file" in the "file type" box, you need to install the appropriate file converter. The installation method is not described in detail;

5. Open the document as usual.

In this case, the "convert file" dialog box is displayed. Select the desired file format. Of course, if you want to restore text from the damaged Word document, select "plain text" (figure 5) and click "OK" to press the button. However, after you select "plain text", only common text in the document can be restored. The image objects in the original document will be lost, and non-text information such as the header and footer will be changed to common text.

5. Disable Automatic macro operation

If a Word document contains an incorrect automatic macro code, when you try to open the document, the automatic macro in it cannot run properly due to the error, leading to the failure to open the document. At this time, in "Windows Resource Manager", press the Shift key and double-click the Word document to Prevent Automatic macros from running and open the document.

6. Create a new Normal Template

Word stores the default information in the Normal. dot template file. If the template file is damaged, it may cause an error that cannot open the Word document. To create a new Normal template, follow these steps:

1. Disable Word;

2. Use the "Search" or "Search" command in the Windows "start" menu to find all Normal. dot files and rename or delete them. For example, in Windows XP, click Start, then search, and then click all files and folders. In the all or part of file names box, type "normal. dot, in the "search here" list box, click the hard drive letter to install Word, and click the "Search" button. After searching, right-click "Normal" or "Normal" in the result list. dot, and then click the RENAME command to enter a new name for the file, such as "Normal. old, and then press Enter;

3. Start Word

At this time, because Word cannot identify the renamed Normal template file, it will automatically create a new Normal template.

7. Solutions to display chaos

After you open a damaged Word document using the above method, if the content of the document is messy, you can copy all the content not marked in the last paragraph to a new document, to solve the Garbled text, follow these steps:

1. Select all content not marked in the last section by pressing the Crtl + Home key combination, then pressing the Crtl + Shift + End key combination, and then pressing the Shift + begin key combination;

2. on the "common" toolbar, click "copy", "new", and "Paste.

In fact, in Word documents, the system uses the last paragraph to mark and associate various format settings, especially the format settings of sections and styles. If you copy all content not marked in the last section to the new document, it is possible to leave the corrupted content in the original document, and in the new document, apply the format settings of all missing sections or styles again.