THe Office Open XML file...cannot be opened

[Ted M H]

Word 2007 WinXP Pro
I've got a really scary problem. An important file that I've worked all day
on can't open all of a sudden. When I try to open here's the message:

THe Office Open XML file XXX.docx cannot be opened because there are
problems with the contents.

When I take the option to display details it says:

Location: Part: /word/document.xml, Line: 2, Column 91482.

I've tried all the suggestions in Dawn Crosier's response to a similar
problem dated 10/2/2007, but I get the same result--either nothing or just
gibberish.

Have I just lost all my data? Is that possible?

 

[Terry Farrell]

Being unable to go back to February to read Dawn's posting, have you tried
Insert File in a new blank document? Have you tried the Open and Repair
option? Have you tried the Recover Text from Any File option?

 

[Ted M H]

Hi Terry,

Thanks for your reply. I guess I should have referrred to the post from 2
Oct 2007 to avoid confusion...

Dawn's suggestions included Open and Repair and Recover Text from any file.
Neither of these worked for my file. Open and repair just results in the
same error message about not being able to open the file. Recover text seems
to work, but the result is just several pages of gibberish inserted into a
new document.

I tried your additional suggestion this morning and the result is still a
blank document. When I insert the file (Insert/Text/Object/Text from file)
nothing happens--I still have a blank new document.

I'm sort of in a state of shock about this. I don't recall ever losing a
significant amount of data before through no fault of my own. With this
problem I now realize that just having good work habits (i.e. save the file
early and often) is not enough. How can I prevent this from happening again?
THis is horrible!

 

[Terry Farrell]

Ted

It is horrible and I don't know why it happened. Saving a newly created
document and regular saving is what I recommend (and practice). It is a bit
worrying that Word seems to have trashed the file completely.

Check to see if the structure has been totally trashed but renaming the
document with a .zip extension and then open it in either WinZip or WinRAR.
This should display all the separate components of the file (which should be
just a collection of zipped components). Is the structure totalled?

Terry

 

[Ted M H]

Hi Terry,

Thanks again for your reply, and for the empathy. I renamed the file to
*.zip and my winzip program opens it. THere are 18 files in the zip archive,
with names like app, comments, core, document, etc., all with xml file
extensions. Further, I can open these files and view what looks like some
sort of code (gibberish to me) along with snippets of my text. There's also
an image file (image2.png) that I had inserted in the original document, and
that image is still intact.

Does this mean there's hope that I could recover this data?

I'd be almost happy if I could just get the raw text that I entered into
this file. Then I can paste it into a new document and format it again, etc.
The loss I'm facing now is several hours of original thinking that would be
hard to duplicate -- the formatting and images and comment, etc. aren't
really that important to me. Is there a way to do this?

Incidently, in desparation I sent a description of this problem to MS tech
support this morning, as a last ditch effort to recover my work before I
start redoing it. They need 24 hours to respond, so I don't expect to hear
from them until tomorrow.

Really appreciate your help...

 

[Terry Farrell]

At least the file structure seems intact. I've not played any more with the
structure at XML level: my level of expertise stops at that level. I expect
someone that really understands XML may be able to help.

Terry

 

[Ted M H]

Terry,

Thanks again for your efforts. That Zip file thing you had me do was very
interesting. I just heard back from MS and they recovered the file and sent
it back to me as a Word 2003 doc, and I'm able to recover all of the work I
thought I'd lost. I asked several times what the cause of the corruption
was, what I can do to prevent it and what I can do if it happens
again--especially if my 90 tech support option has ended. No answers
whatsoever to these questions. Just fixed my file and sent it back to me.
Very Scary.

One thing I started doing on my own is to set the Always Create Backup
Copies option in Word 2007. I think MS gave us this option because of
problems like mine....wish me luck!

Thanks again,
Ted

 

[Terry Farrell]

Partially good news then.

But please note that the backup in Word isn't what you may expect. It works
by always keeping the previous version of the document you are editing. So
if you have a crash or corruption occur, there will be a copy of the
document but only edited up to the PREVIOUS save. So to be any use, you need
to be trained to save, save, save. But that shouldn't be a problem for you.

Terry

 

[Beth Melton]

Based on the error message you cited there may have been a bit of corruption
in the schema declaration at the beginning of the file. MS may have either
corrected the error in the line and position noted in the error message
(document.xml, Line: 2, Column 91482) or they may have copy/pasted another
schema declaration from a working file. If you were still having difficulty
the latter was going to be my suggestion.

As for how it happened, I don't know. But what I do know is the new XML file
format makes data recovery more successful than the binary format. As you
noted, you can crack the file open which allows you to make the necessary
modifications. So if anything, saving in the new file format will increase
your chances for recovery. IOW, I'd covert the .doc they sent you to a
..docx. If there is something on your system that is causing the corruption
you definitely don't want to be using a binary format.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Nima]

Word 2007 Enterprise
Dear Ted M H
I have the same problem as you in my final MS Dissertation with a little
difference in second line
Location: Part: /word/document.xml, Line: 2, Column 683376.
Please help me A.S.A.P
Please send me the mail address you sent your work to and the solution if
you know.
Best Regards

 

[Mahendra]

Word 2007 Enterprise
Dear Ted M H
I have the same problem as you in my final MS Dissertation with a little
difference in second line
Location: Part: /word/document.xml, Line: 2, Column 683376.
Please help me A.S.A.P
Please send me the mail address you sent your work to and the solution if
you know.
Best Regards

 

[Allen]

This probably won't help anyone who already has posted above...and my
solution probably won't be enjoyed by microsoft. I also have OpenOffice
(from openoffice.org) on my machine. When I right clicked the file and
opened it in OpenOffice, it was all there just as I had saved it.
Interestingly, when I went to re-save it, it would not allow me to save in
Word 97/2000/XP but I was able to save in ODT which can be re-opened in Word.
Mark one up for OpenSource again...lol.

 

[Alex C]

I've just had the same problem and initially tried opening the file in
Notepad but that was not exactly useful. I then tried 'open with' and tried
WordPad. That read the file (Windows 7) and retained most of the formatting,
but lost the headers and footers. Contents and index information was there,
but only as text rather than fields. I then saved the file and reopened it
in Word and restored the formatting, contents and index and saved. However
the next time I opened the new file (different name used) exactly the same
happened – it would not open again. I have been through all the suggestions
in the posts and nothing seems to get the file back, although I can open it
in WordPad again – less the extra features. So it seems that one route to
get the data back may be to use WordPad. Obviously, it is just ignoring the
bits it doesn’t understand – which I would expect in a markup environment –
and processing the rest.
I have been using Office 2007 for over a year now without problems, but this
is the first time I have tried using contents and index in 2007, so I am
suspicious that those may be triggering the problem. I have used them
frequently before in Office XP with no issues. Anyone know of issues with
contents or index with regard to corruption?