Can not open a Word document in 2007

[RE Hyde]

Received a very large word file (.doc extension) over 87 M. Worked in the
file and saved as (.docx). Used/updated this new file for two days with no
problem. This morning when I tried to open it received the following message

"The Office Open XML file xxxxx.docx cannot be opened because there are
problems with the content"

When I click the "Details >>>"button; Details comes up with "No error detail
available"Can anone help me open this file. Alot of work went into it and I
can not afford (job wise) to lose this work.

 

[Terry Farrell]

Try Open & Repair. But 87 MB is huge suggesting that it was at least
partially corrupt before you converted it. An 87 MB Word doc was suicidal to
let it get that size without investigating it. It must have been horrendous
to edit.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

If you don't have an uncorrupted backup, you might be able to rescue some of
the content in the following way:

1. If you have Open Office, try opening it with that. It's a little more
fault tolerant than Word 2007, and can sometimes open files that Word won't.

2. If all else fails, rename a copy of the document using the .zip
extension. Open the zip using Windows Explorer, and drill down to the word
folder (inside the .zip file), and extract document.xml. If you open that
file using the Recover text... option in Word, you should at least be able
to recover the text.

 

[Derek]

I just had a similar problem and thought I would post my solution for others
that end up with the same problem.

I tired Herb’s idea of opening it with Open Office. It did open the
document (and Word 2007 would open the resulting document saved in Open
Office). However, the document was filled with equations. A few equations
created with the equation editor in Word 2003 that I had copied and pasted to
the Word 2003 document were OK. However, Open Office screwed up all the
equations created with Word 2007 (a 60 page document filled with equations).

A suggestion I got an another board (for some reason the request for help I
posted here did not appear), was more successful. It was to convert the file
to .rtf using a website that offers that service for free. The .rtf document
opened with the equations appearing properly. I then resaved the resulting
..rtf file as a Word 2007 file and everything seems to work well now.

If you don't have an uncorrupted backup, you might be able to rescue some of
the content in the following way:

1. If you have Open Office, try opening it with that. It's a little more
fault tolerant than Word 2007, and can sometimes open files that Word won't.

2. If all else fails, rename a copy of the document using the .zip
extension. Open the zip using Windows Explorer, and drill down to the word
folder (inside the .zip file), and extract document.xml. If you open that
file using the Recover text... option in Word, you should at least be able
to recover the text.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[Derek]

I spoke to soon.

It turned out I was wrong about the problem being fixed. The RTF conversion
just removed all the equations done with Word’s new equation editor. I have
tried other options for converting the files (e.g. pdf. doc. Etc.. In all
cases, it is the same story. The conversions open the files but loses all
the equations created in Word 2007. I am starting to retype them now. If
anyone comes up with any other suggestions, I would appreciate it. There
must be some format a Word 2007 document can be converted into without losing
the equations. I hate Microsoft!

 

[Hugh]

I seem to have found an interesting solution to this problem.

Without opening the corrupted .docx file, you can right click the file and
"save as" word 2003 .doc format.

This solved my problem without editing the xml.