how do I recover a corrupted word document

[Steve]

I have a extensive piece of irreplaceable fiction that I MUST recover. The
original document was created in Word 2003 but now I've upgraded to 2008 and
the characters all come out squares. Why does MS Word do such things? Where
is my work? Help?

 

[Stefan Blom]

Have you tried Open and Repair?

 

[Twayne]

In

I have a extensive piece of irreplaceable fiction that I MUST
recover. The original document was created in Word 2003 but now I've
upgraded to 2008 and the characters all come out squares. Why does
MS Word do such things? Where is my work? Help?

Check the File Types and set it before you open the document. That may not
help though; I've heard that 2007 can't handle 2003 and earlier formats;
another MS screw job. HOWEVER, if you obtain a 2003 reader, or can install
2003, then you could do a copy/paste to the 2007 document.

Do your testing with a small part of the document or it might take forever
to do your testing.

From Wikipedia :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word#Word_2002.2FXP
Word 2007 uses a new file format called docx. Word 2000-2003 users on
Windows systems can install a free add-on called the "Microsoft Office
Compatibility Pack" to be able to open, edit, and save the new Word 2007
files.[14] Alternatively, Word 2007 can save to the old doc format of Word
97-2003.[15][16]




HTH,

Twayne

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

In

Check the File Types and set it before you open the document. That may not
help though; I've heard that 2007 can't handle 2003 and earlier formats;
another MS screw job.  HOWEVER, if you obtain a 2003 reader, or can install
2003, then you could do a copy/paste to the 2007 document.

That's completely backward, and anyway Steve is talking about Word2008
(for Mac), not Word2007.

Do your testing with a small part of the document or it might take forever
to do your testing.

From Wikipedia  :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word#Word_2002.2FXP
Word 2007 uses a new file format called docx. Word 2000-2003 users on
Windows systems can install a free add-on called the "Microsoft Office
Compatibility Pack" to be able to open, edit, and save the new Word 2007
files.[14] Alternatively, Word 2007 can save to the old doc format of Word
97-2003.[15][16]