How to Repair Word Documents | 10 Word File Repair Tips

Are you unable to open or read content in a Word document file? Calm down when your Word 2016/2019 and other older versions won't open or even becomes corrupted, damaged, or unreadable on Windows 10/8/7. EaseUS Word repair tool with other 9 Microsoft fixes are available here to help. For an efficient solution, let EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard help to open and repair Word 2016 immediately.

Quick Steps to Repair Word:

1. Step 1. Run the EaseUS Word repair tool.
2. Step 2. Add and repair corrupt, unreadable, and won't open Word files. 
3. Step 3. Preview and save the repaired Word document. More Detailed...

Have you ever had a troublesome case in which Microsoft Word 2016 doesn't seem to open a .doc or .docx Word file? Are you having trouble opening a Word file as it says that "Word experienced an error trying to open the file" or "Word was unable to read this document? It may be corrupt"?

How to repair Word? If you are experiencing the same issues on a Windows PC, check out and find the right way to fix Word 2016 won't open or unreadable issues on this page.

Repair Word Documents with Word File Repair Tool

When your Word 2016 or 2019 file doesn't open, repairing the file and finding all precious content is the most urgent thing. To make things easy for you, the EaseUS team has devised a straightforward method: adding a new algorithm to the latest EaseUS Fixo Document Repair version, making it a powerful Word repair tool.

Unlike other Word file repair tools, EaseUS Fixo Document Repair will automatically repair your corrupted, damaged, or unreadable Word file. With this functional Word repair tool, you can easily solve Word cannot open, Word blank pages, Word shows up 0kb, and other issues.

If Word corruption happens on an external hard drive, SD card, or other storage devices, EaseUS Fixo Document Repair can also help you solve the problem!

Download this Microsoft repair software and follow to learn how to repair your corrupt Word document files on your own:

Step 1. Launch the EaseUS Word repair tool on the PC, and select the corrupted Word documents by clicking "File Repair" and "Add Files".

Step 2. In the following interface, you can repair multiple corrupted Word files at once by choosing "Repair All". You can also click the Repair button to recover corrupted Word file one by one.

Step 3. Save the repaired Word documents, and you can check them by clicking the "View Repaired" button. 

Besides supporting the opening and repair of corrupt Word 2016/2019 files, you may also apply this software to repair other files, such as corrupted Excel files, damaged videos, images, etc. 

You can share this post with your colleagues or classmates to open and repair files:

If you follow any of the fixes listed in the next part, you can successfully repair and open a Word file in Microsoft Word 2016/2019/2013 or even older versions. 

How to Repair Word Files with MS Word Converter

You can also use a Word text recovery converter to fix Word documents. Here are the detailed steps you need to follow:

Step 1. Open the Word 2016 application, go to File > Open.

Step 2. Click "Browse".

Step 3. Navigate to select the not opening Word 2016 file and select "Recover Text from Any File (*.*) from the dropdown menu.

Step 4. Click "Open" and wait patiently. The Word application will reopen and display your Word 2016 document content.

Step 5. Once you see the file content, we suggest you copy the content and save it as a new file in case of further issues.

If the text recovery converter cannot fix the issue, your Word file may be seriously damaged. Try professional Word repair tool to open and repair Word files.

Open and Repair Word with Microsoft Open and Repair

You can also fix Microsoft Word won't open with Microsoft open and repair like this:

Step 1. Open the Word 2016 application, go to "File" > "Open" > "Browse".

Step 2. Go to the location or folder where your problematic Word document is saved, and select the corrupted Word file.

Step 3. Click the dropdown arrow next to Open, and select "Open and Repair".

Wait for the process to complete. When you can see your Word content, copy and save it to a new file.

How to Fix Word Documents with Other 7 Methods

So, how do you fix a corrupted Word document file? Do you know how to open and repair a corrupt Word 2016 when any one of the above cases occurs? Here, you'll unveil * practical fixes that will help you effectively repair and fix corrupt Word 2016/2019, etc., on your own:

1. #1. Unlock Word File
2. #2. Insert the File in a New Document
3. #3. Open Corrupt Word in Draft Mode
4. #4. Change the Word Document Format
5. #5. Open the Document with Notepad
6. #6. Make Sufficient Free Memory and Disk Space
7. #7. Find and Recover from Temporary Autosave File

Note that these fixes also work to fix and repair corrupted documents in Microsoft Office Word 2013/2010/2007, etc. The more fixes are listed, the more efficient the corrupt Word file repair will be.

Pick up one and follow to learn how to make your corrupt 2016 Word document openable and readable again:

Method 1. Unlock Word File

When you try to open a Word 2016/2019 file, you receive an error message saying, "Word experienced an error trying to open the file..." This is usually caused by third-party software while transferring or gaining permission to access the file.

You can try to unlock the file with the following steps:

Step 1. Right-click the problematic Word file and select "Properties".

Step 2. On the General tab, uncheck "Read-Only" > "OK".

Now, you should be able to open this Word file on your computer without any further issues.

Note that if you met this error on many Word documents, try the following steps:

Step 1. Copy and move all problematic Word documents to the same folder.

Step 2. Open Word 2016 and click "File" > "Options".

Step 3. Click "Trust Center" and then click "Trust Center Settings".

Step 4. Click "Trusted Locations" > "Add new location".

Step 5. Browse a new location to save those files, and click "OK" > "OK" to complete.

It would be great if you share this post with users facing this Word error on forums like Reddit:

Method 2. Insert the File in a New Document

Step 1. Open the Word 2016 application and create a blank new Word document.

Step 2. Go to the Insert tab on the menu bar, click "Insert Object", and select "Text from File".

Step 3. In the Insert File box, locate and select the Word file that is not opening, corrupt, or damaged, and select "Insert."

Step 4. Wait for the application to open and read the corrupt Word 2016 document content.

You may also copy and save the content to a new blank document.

Method 3. Open Corrupt Word in Draft Mode

Step 1. Open the Word application, click the View tab, and select "Draft" in the Views group.

Step 2. Select "File" > "Options" > "Advanced".

Step 3. In the Show document content section, select "Use the draft font in Draft and Outline views" and "Show picture placeholders".

Step 4. Go to the Display section, uncheck "Update automatic links at open", select "OK," and close Word.

Step 5. Restart the Word application, and go to "File" > "Open".

Step 6. Select the damaged or not opening Word 2016 file, then select "Open".

Method 4. Change the Word Document Format

Step 1. Start Word 2016 application and go to "File" > "Open".

Step 2. Select the unreadable or corrupt Word document and select "Open".

Step 3. Go to "File" > "Save as" > Select "Browse".

Step 4. Select "Rich Text Format (*.rtf)" in the Save as file type list.

Step 5. Select "Save". Then close Word.

Step 6. After this, you can double-click to open the RTF file and check out your Word 2016 document content.

If the file opens and your content is safely saved in it, you can repeat the above steps to save the file as a Word document in a .doc or .docx file.

Method 5. Open the Document with Notepad

Step 1. Open the folder where you saved the damaged Word document in File Explorer.

Step 2. Right-click the damaged Word 2016 file and select "Open with".

Step 3. Select "Notepad" as the tool to open Word.

Step 4. Wait for the Notepad to open the Word document. If the Notepad cannot open the corrupt Word, try EaseUS Fixo Document Repair can quickly solve your problem.

Method 6. Make Sufficient Free Memory and Disk Space

Sometimes, when the memory and disk space are insufficient, the Windows operating system will not allow the Word application to open a file or even create a new document. So, the best way is to increase memory and disk space.

Fortunately, there are many ways to increase memory and disk space on your computer. Some are easy, but some are not.

For a more detailed guide, please refer to Five Fixes for the "There is not enough memory or disk space to run Word" Error.

Method 7. Find and Recover from Temporary Autosave File

The last efficient way you can try is to open the Temporary Autosave File folder and find the temp file of the not opening or damaged Word file.

Here are the steps:

Step 1. Open the Word 2016 application and go to "File".

Step 2. Click "Manage Document" and select "Recover Unsaved Documents" from the dropdown list.

Step 3. Check and select the temporary files of your problematic Word document saved with .asd extension.

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Step 4. Wait for Word application to open the recovered Word document and click "Save As" to save it as a new document.

In The End

How to repair Word document? This page covered the symptoms that can help you identify if a Word file is corrupted or not opening. We also collected 10 practical fixes to help you effectively open and repair Word document files in Microsoft Office 2016/2019, etc.

For a quick and secure way, the EaseUS Fixo repair tool is a must-have tool that you can't miss. Besides fixing corrupted Word files, you may also use it to repair Excel, videos, images, etc., with ease.

Further FAQs about Corrupted Word File Repair

1. How to define if it's the Word application or the Word document corrupted?

This page lists the symptoms and error messages that may appear on your computer when a Word document is not opening or is corrupted.

Here are some symptoms that you can apply to determine whether it is your Word application that crashed:

Error 1 - "Microsoft Word has stopped working"

If you see the error message "A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Please close the program," you will need to find methods to fix the crashed Word program.

You may also be interested in 8 Fixes for Microsoft Word Has Stopped Working.

Error 2 - "WINWORD.EXE - Application Error" or Error Code

If "The application was unable to start correctly (0x000142). Click OK to close this application," or similar error codes pop up while starting up Microsoft Word, you are having an issue with your Word application.

2. Where is open and repair in Word?

As we know, the Open and Repair option can fix corrupted Word documents. So how do I find it? You can follow this path to find it:

Open Word App > File > Open > Browse > Select the corrupted Word file > Besides Open, click the dropdown arrow to bring up "Open and Repair".

3. Why is my word document not opening?

Whether networked or stand-alone, documents may fail to open because the data file itself is corrupted or because the file is being loaded from a damaged disk. The key to getting data out of Word documents that won't load is not to panic.

Searching and trying practical Word recovery and repair methods is your next move. EaseUS Fixo Document Repair, with 9 other fixes, is recommended on this page in Part 1 and is ready to help. Just revert and pick up one to make your Word openable and work again.