#1
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Word deletes corrupt documents
I copyedit science journal articles using Word 2007 on a PC. Twice in the last month, halfway through editing, Word complains that it has a problem with the document and I have to use the Task Manager to close Word. When I reopened Word, the documents listed in the File Recovery panel are very old. When I open the folder where I had been saving the work in progress (many times), the document is not there. When I do a search of my hard drive for it, I find a 1 KB file whose name is preceded by `$. When I try to open it in Word, I'm told the file "cannot be opened because there are problems with its contents."
So I've lost 2 days' worth of editing. I have to start again from the original document. I've tried two file recovery programs, but all I can point them to to recover is the 1 KB file; I suspect it's just a pointer or something, so they can't "recover" it. I've been given lots of corrupt files (Chinese science papers have lots of formulae and graphics, and hundreds of corrections are needed), but I can usually fix them. Not so, when they disappear entirely. Before Word has its "problem" with a document, I've already saved it many times as I work. But in the 2 cases I've described, there's no indication that the file was not "really" being saved, and it disappears. How can I either recover these papers or ensure the saved versions don't get deleted? |
#2
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The first thing to do is to ensure your Office installation is working properly. To that end, try repairing it (via Windows Control Panel > Programs > Programs & Features > Microsoft Office (version) > Change > Repair).
Corrupt documents can often be 'repaired' by inserting a new, empty, paragraph at the very end, copying everything except that new paragraph to a new document based on the same template (headers & footers may need to be copied separately), closing the old document and saving the new one over it. With the problematic files you're receiving, it might be best to start off by doing this before making any other edits. Similarly, corrupt tables (which the above process won't repair) can often be 'repaired' by: • converting the tables to text and back again; • cutting & pasting them to another document that you save the document in RTF format, which you then close then re-open before copying them back to the source document; or • saving the document in RTF format, closing the document then re-opening it and re-saving in the doc(x) format. Do note that some forms of table corruption can only be repaired by the first method. Another fairly common source of problems is a cluttered temporary files folder. Orphaned .tmp files can accumulate over time as a result of crashes or shutting down the computer without first exiting all programs. See: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...emporary-files. You might try closing all programs, then navigating to: C:\Users\%Username%\AppData\Local\Temp and deleting anything you find there. Windows might complain a few files are in use, but anything else can go.
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Cheers, Paul Edstein [Fmr MS MVP - Word] |
#3
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Thank you, Paul. I ended up following one of your suggestions: copying all but the final paragraph mark into an empty document, and then saving that over the old one. No more problems have occurred in it so far. I'm also setting up a calendar reminder to delete all my Word temp files weekly. In the future, I'll do the copy/paste method on all received files, even if they seem innocuous.
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Tags |
deleted items, recover files |
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