How to Recover Content from Damaged Documents in Word 2007

Problems with word processor documents can be very frustrating. This article is about fixing some common and some not-so-common problems with document formatting or damage that may or may not make Word crash or freeze up. Here we'll look at both what to do if you can open and view the file, at least a little, or what to do if the file can't be opened all. This information is based on Microsoft Knowledgebase article 918429.

Navigation: If you can't open your document at all without Word crashing, read the first two sections below and then scroll down and go to page three. Once there, start with the section entitled "Try Opening in Draft View with Minimal Features." If you're getting an error message about "Normal.dot" or are able to open the document with some difficulty or problems within the document, please start immediately below.

Normal.dot is the default document template in Microsoft Word. It’s responsible for the blank page that appears when you start Word, and it contains all of the default formatting you’ve set for your documents. It’s fairly common knowledge that checking for a damaged normal.dot file is a first step in troubleshooting when you see normal.dot errors or when Word freezes or crashes at startup.

That’s great when it works, which is quite often, but what if you still can’t get into a document that contains data that you need even after deleting or renaming all the normal.dot files you find on your PC? What if your document opens, but is showing other corruption or causing error message? What if Word appears to be “stuck” and repeatedly tries to process the same formatting (like re-doing the page breaks or page numbers) over and over? Please follow along as we'll be trying to troubleshoot and fix those types of problems, too.

The first step in troubleshooting is to determine if the normal.dot template is damaged. Fortunately this is not difficult. Microsoft has provided a “switch” to use for testing. Here’s how it works.

Click Start → Run, and then type in

winword.exe /a

and press Enter.

If Word then starts without problems, it’s likely that the normal.dot file is the problem. Fix this by searching your PC (all files and folders on the C: drive) for normal.dot and rename each one to something like “normal.dot.old.” Then start Word to force it to create a new normal.dot template.

If that cures your problem, that’s wonderful. However, if you still have problems with a document, there are other steps to try in troubleshooting. Please continue.

Can you isolate the problems to one particular document? Check this by seeing if you can open other similar documents. If your problems are spreading to other documents or other components of Office, like your spreadsheet files, the problem is beyond the scope of what we’re covering here. You may need to use the repair function within Office or even reinstall Office. It's also possible that you need to run a virus scan or perform testing and diagnosis on your hard drive.

But supposing that you find that your problem exists in only a single document or a few related documents that were created at nearly the same time, then the next step in troubleshooting is to determine what they have in common.

Microsoft advocates changing the printer driver at this point. This is wise because Word queries the default printer settings when opening a document. Our troubleshooting can veer off here, too, as another possible cause of problems is a missing printer driver.

If your PC is a dual use machine that you use at work as well as a home, it’s possible that the printer drivers for those documents are set up on the network and don’t exist when you’re not connected to that network. If you find that you can open those related troublesome documents at work, but not at home, missing printer drivers are your problem, and there’s nothing more to troubleshoot here. However, you can resolve this issue by using the following step to create a temporary local printer that you can use at home.

Other than in that specific situation, disabling the printer driver to see if that has an effect is the next thing to try. This involves deleting your existing printer driver and installing a new one. For Word 2007 you can install the XPS Document Writer as your new default printer.

Pause here before proceeding. Did Windows automatically identify your real printer and install the drivers when you first plugged it in? If it needed a CD-ROM to install the printer, you need to make certain that you have that CD-ROM handy before you delete your primary printer driver. You also need to unplug the printer from the PC before deleting the printer.

It’s probable that the XPS Document Printer is already installed on a Vista system. To verify it, go to Start → Control Panel → Printers. Do you see the XPS Document Printer there? If so, and you have everything you need to reinstall the real printer, you can go ahead and delete the physical printer by right-clicking on the icon and selecting “Delete.” Vista may ask you if you want to delete all files associated with the printer. Choose “Yes” for this prompt and confirm the action.

If the XPS Document Printer is not there, click “Add a printer” in the top bar. Click “Add a local printer” and then select “Use an existing port” and click “Next.” In the next pane, wait for the list of printers to appear. Then scroll down and select “Microsoft” in the list. In the right-hand pane, select Microsoft XPS Document Writer” and then click “Next.” In the next pane, select “Use the driver that is current installed (recommended)” and click “Next.” In the next pane, select “Set as the default printer” and click “Next.” The installer will ask if you want to print a test page. That’s fairly useless for our purposes, so click “Finish” to close the dialog. At this point, the Microsoft XPS document printer should have appeared in the Control Panel → Printers window.

Now you can delete the actual printer driver. Again, make sure that you have what you need to reinstall the printer after this test. Also, please verify that you have closed all copies of Word on your system.

After the printer driver is deleted, start Word and see if you can open your troublesome documents. If so, see if you can download an updated printer driver from your printer manufacturer’s website. If you still have problems, reinstall your real printer and skip the next section.