“the file is corrupted and can’t be open”,

I got a file of 1.3 MB that can’t be open. I error message is attached.



What might be the issue here?

Thank you

Best

Jamal

Attached Images

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Did you click on the Details button? Document corruption is often the result of working on Word documents that are stored on USB drives that then don't get removed safely.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks Paul for the help.

The details are already shown.

I’m wondering if there is some workaround to resolve this problem

Best

Jamal

That really depends on what the corruption is.

Sometimes other programs (eg Open Office) will open such files where Word will not.

Of course, you should also be keeping backups as a safeguard against such eventualities.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks Paul,

Fortunately, I have a backup for this file for the nearest day. My worries here is how easy it is to lose data. One never feel secure. One needs to back up in a minute basis. No warranties. In most cases, no solutions for corruption.

One important safeguard is to never work on documents stored on a USB stick - always copy them to the local hard disk and work on them there, copying back to the USB stick afterwards.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

There is no, and never has been, full security for Word. Corruption of documents has been an issue from the very beginning. That said, most corruption comes from improper opening and saving of the file.

Do not open and work on documents from email; always save the file to the harddrive and open it from there.

Do not open and work on files directly from a USB device; always save the file to the harddrive and open it from there.

Corruption can happen with really large documents, but the fact is most corruption stems from shaky file handling.

But yes, the bottom line is there are no warranties.

See also Automatically backup Word documents.

Thanks Paul, fumei and Charles Kenyon for the the useful input.

Since long time ago, I used to work on my external hard drive (currently WD of 2TB \passport style) as I can plug it and play in any machine. This made my life easier. My data is with me all the time and I can access it from any machine. The disadvantage of this is that this hard drive is really at risk all the time.

In return, I used to synchronize this 2TB drive with other drives in daily basis (I use the Allway sync. Software) to do the job.


Best

Jamal

An acquaintance of mine once made savvy use of available technology to keep a backup of his doctoral thesis: worked fine, until his central heating sprang a leak and soaked the box of punched tape …

I'd be minded to save .txt backups from time to time, as well as fully-formatted .doc/.docx. Thinking as I type, I might try .html as well, to retain an idea of the formatting for the day when I had to reconstruct it <g>

Wandering slightly off-thread, I find I'm doing more and more in structured XML anyway.