# Please help my word file has been corrupted



## gorrila42 (Aug 9, 2009)

I just recently finished typing my Phd abstract and the deadline is in a few days. I transferred the finished document to a usb drive, so as to print it off a different computer which was connected to the printer. When I tried to open it this is what it says:

"This office open XML file "title.docx" cannot be opened because there are problems with the contents"

On clicking the details button it says

"The file is corrupted and cannot be opened
Location: Part: /word/document.xml, Line: 2, Column: 18027"

On clicking ok It gives the following message

"Word found unreadable content "title.docx" Do you want to recover the contents of this document? If you trust the source of the document click yes."

I clicked yes, and this is what it says:

"This office open XML file "title.docx" cannot be opened because there are problems with the contents"

On clicking the details button again it says

"The name in the end tag of the element must match the element type in the start tag
Location: Part: /word/document.xml, Line: 2, Column: 18027"

I have tried various recover/repair softwares on the net and unfortunately none of them has worked. Uploading the file to google docs has resulted in only two pages of the 17 being recovered. I have also tried the open and repair feature in word as well as the recover text from any file option as these were suggested by microsoft troubleshoot article. But this has also not worked

If anyone knows how to recover at least the text from this document I will be extremely grateful, as this file is of extreme importance to my course. If required i can email the file over to you should it help. Please please please x 10 help


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## macropod (Apr 11, 2008)

Hi gorrila42,

Since you 'transferred the finished document to a usb drive', I expect there's a copy of it on the drive from which it was transferred. You could try opening that, since it may be just the USB copy that is corrupt (eg because you removed the USB drive without using 'safely remove hardware' before the file had finished being written). Failing that, you might have to recreate whatever you've written since making your last backup of the file.


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## ahmorrow (May 5, 2009)

You could try opening the file it wordpad or even notepad. You'll lose your formatting and need to edit it, but all the words--SHOULD--be there. In notepad you'll get a bunch of odd looking characters and then a blank page pretty much and then the words should start. If not, it's beyond me...


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## macropod (Apr 11, 2008)

Hi ahmorrow,

Neither Nordpad nor Notepad can open Word 2007 documents, which the error messages show the file to be.


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## ahmorrow (May 5, 2009)

They can open them, they just don't make it look pretty like word does. I've done it before many times.


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## macropod (Apr 11, 2008)

Hi ahmorrow,

Whilst 'opening' in the technical sense is possible, neither Wordpad nor Notepad can dispaly Word 2007 documents in form any mere mortal can read. If you think otherwise, all that shows is you've never tried it with a docx or docm file. All that either program shows with such files is the binary data plus the odd bit of xml code. The reason is simple - Word 2007 files are compressed XML files stored in a zip container. If you change the file extension to .zip and open the file with WinZip etc, you'll be able to see the embedded file structure.


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## ahmorrow (May 5, 2009)

Eh, I'm using linux, so it works fine for me  don't get all rude because yours isn't as awesome lol. I'll do some research on some recovery methods for word documents.


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## ahmorrow (May 5, 2009)

Now I know what's going on I think. First, try this: http://www.datanumen.com/awr/

If that doesn't work, then send it to someone with OpenOffice or download it yourself from http://www.openoffice.org/

Have them open it and see if that works. I've heard of success stories with both. The first is only a demo, but it *might* fix the problem.

If you'd like for me to give it a shot you can attach it to a PM, but that's up to you. The only reason I even suggest it is because it's a privacy thing. I have no interest in a phd abstract or whatever it is.


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## mjronline (Aug 13, 2009)

Send me the file and I'll see what I can do. I recently finished a recovery of a few hundred word files from a completely destroyed and corrupted hard drive. Depending on the type of damage, I may be able to recover it.


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## jk0087 (Dec 6, 2009)

im suffering from the exact same problem. has anyone found a fix?


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