When a Word document file is corrupted, then you can try several methods to recover it:
1. First of all, you can try the recovery function integrated with Microsoft Word, as follows:
1) On the File menu, click Open.
2) In the Look in list, click the drive, folder, or Internet location that contains the file that you want to open.
3) In the folder list, locate and open the folder that contains the file.
4) Select the file that you want to recover.
5) Click the arrow next to the Open button, and then click Open and Repair.
You may find more information about this at:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/recover-the-text-from-a-damaged-document-HP005189610.aspx (for Word 2003)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/893672/en-us (for Word 2007/2010/2013)
2. Second, since Word 2003, it provides a "Document Recovery" or "AutoRecover" mechanism so that when Word is shutdown abnormally, the Word file being edited will be recovered when Word is launched next time, which makes the file recovery
possible.
See below:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316951/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827099/
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/do-you-want-to-view-recovered-files-again-HA010354297.aspx
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/automatically-save-and-recover-office-files-HP010140729.aspx
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/recover-your-office-files-HP010354299.aspx
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/use-the-document-recovery-task-pane-to-recover-files-HP003078411.aspx
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/word-help/use-the-document-recovery-task-pane-to-recover-your-files-HP010140613.aspx
for more detailed information.
3. Third, you may also try OpenOffice to open and repair the corrupted document. OpenOffice is a free and open source software which is compatible with Word document. Sometimes it can open the corrupt document that Word cannot open.
You can get OpenOffice at http://www.openoffice.org/
4. For docx files, they are actually a group of files compressed in Zip file format. Therefore, sometimes, if the corruption is only caused by the Zip file, then you can use Zip repair tools such as WinRAR at
http://www.rarlab.com to repair the file, as follows:
4.1 Assuming the corrupt Word file is a.docx, then you need to rename it to a.zip
4.2 Start WinRAR, go to "Tools > Repair Archive" to repair a.zip and generated a fixed file a_fixed.zip.
4.3 Rename a_fixed.zip back to a_fixed.docx
4.4 Using Excel to open a_fixed.docx.
There may still be some warnings when opening the fixed file in Word, just let ignore it and Word will try to open and repair the fixed file. If the file can be opened successfully, then you can just save the contents into another error-free file.
5. If 1, 2, 3 and 4 does not work, then you may try third-party tools such as DataNumen Word Repair at
https://www.datanumen.com/word-repair/
It provides a free demo version so that you can try to see if the data you want can be recovered or not.
Good luck!
