One of the largely used and highly appreciated applications of MS Office tool is MS Word. People of different age groups use this application extensively for creating their personal or professional documents. You can find two file extensions for MS Word files, one is .doc and another is '.docx'. However, at times, it is seen that the documents created by MS Word get corrupt and throw an error message when you try to open them. Some of the common error messages that a user gets when his Word document gets corrupt are:

"Word document is corrupted."

"Word cannot open the document."

"Word cannot open the document: user does not have access privileges."

"The document name or path is not valid. Try these suggestions. Check the file permissions for the document or drive. Use the File Open dialog box to locate the document."

"Word was unable to read this document. It may be corrupt"

Causes: The main cause of getting this error message is corruption of MS Word file. MS Word file gets corrupt due to any of the below mentioned reasons:

  • Sudden power outage
  • Virus infection
  • Improper closing of MS Word document

Resolutions: You can try the below mentioned resolution methods to rectify any of the aforementioned error messages that indicate corruption of your MS Word file:

Use 'Open and Repair' Utility: One of the efficient and easiest methods of repairing and opening your corrupt MS Word document is 'Open and Repair' utility. You can use this utility by following the below mentioned steps:

  • Open MS Word.
  • Click 'File' >> 'Open'
  • After that, select the file that you want to open by single clicking it. Do not double-click this file. 
  • Now, do not click the 'Open' button. Instead, click the small arrow to the right of this button.
  • Click 'Open and Repair' option of the list generated after clicking the arrow at 'Open' button.

With these simple steps of MS Word, you can try to open and repair your corrupt MS Word file. However, if this method does not work, then you can try the next method.

Change the File Format: This method can be used when the first method fails to do any needful to you. In this method, you save your Word file with another file format. To do this, change the file extension of your Word file to '.rtf' or '.txt' file format, and then try to open.

Professional Word Repair Software: If none of the above-mentioned resolutions are able to do the needful, then use of professional Word file repair software like Stellar Repair for Word is recommended. This software is adept at repairing Word file that got corrupt due to any reason. The software repairs your Word document without causing data loss or without performing any modification in the original formatting of your file.