how do you clean up or fix a corrupted file on your computer without re-typing the whole document?

Question

it is a word document, actually a novel. something happened to the hard drive one day while i was typing. usually in WORD, two windows open up. one for your list of documents and another one in which the selected document opens. while i was typing one day, the window for the list just closed. no reason. it just closed. and the only window open was the one for the document. ever since then the file has been tagged "corrupted". if i email it to anyone , they cannot open it. i have scanned it for viruses and it comes up clean. i am stumped and fear i will have to re-type 453 pages. help!

Answer 1

If your working with Office 2003 - it should bring up 2 versions when you reopen word. The corrupted one and the one before the problem started. It sounds like you weren't saving your document as you went along.

I've had windows do funky things when I'm typing fast. I'm a very fast typist and occasionally will hit the wrong button and create a problem such as you describe. Typically I have some kind of saved copy.

Once you save your document one time - when you've typed a few pages, always hit that little SAVE button - at least you're saving as your going along. If you DID have a saved copy - you can try using the 'restore' feature (if XP or ME).

Answer 2

If the file is corrupted, it maybe best not to try. Whatever corrupted the file could cause more damage. Also I know you heard this before back-up as much as possible, stay away from pier to pier systems(unless you a PC only for that). Trying to fix a corrupted file is time consuming and never a guarantee..

Answer 3

copy and paste the typed document into something like wordpad, and save it....then, delete the corrupt file out of Word. then open a new file, and copy the document back into it. should work.

Answer 4

consider it a lesson always save your work on cdrom or diskette.