Trying to open a Word document, but received an error message and were recommended to open the file with the Text Recovery converter? Why?
Because your file is corrupted. Being globally ubiquitous, Microsoft Word is surely the best word processing software. However, a Microsoft Word file can be easily corrupted, which is also the reason why Word app builds in several options to rescue a damaged file, including the Text Recovery converter.
In this guide, we will explain what is Word Text Recovery Converter used for, how to use it and some of its good alternatives, in these 3 parts:
Cisdem Data Recovery for Windows and Mac
Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7
Free Download macOS 10.15 or later
Text Recovery converter is a built-in feature in Microsoft Word designed to recover text from a corrupted Word document. It will ignore the corrupted parts in the file and extract as much readable texts, data, formatting as possible. But very often, the formatting cannot be restored.
A Word file may be corrupted due to sudden power off, bad sectors on the storage disk, unsupported resources, glitches in the app, virus attack or some other reasons. And the Text Recovery converter is very helpful when the corruption is caused by unexpected shutdown or unsupported sources in the file.
To be specific, Word Text Recovery converter works the best when your file has following corrupted parts:
Remarks: Word Text Recovery converter won’t recover all the data, very often, the images, formatting will be gone forever. And it works better in a file with extension .doc.
Microsoft Word has both macOS and Windows editions, which means you can open a file with Text Recovery converter on Mac or PC according to your needs. Actually, the steps are quite similar on both OS, but to help you repair the files accurately, we list the detailed steps as follows.
While Text Recovery converter is designed exclusively to recover text from a corrupted Word document, a Microsoft Word user may get disappointed at the result, or it is just not working at all. After all, we want the file back with full formatting.
You shouldn’t be too worried, because we have other solutions that are built in or outside from Word app to fix a corrupted document, so you can open without error. Here are 6 alternatives to Word Text Recovery converter.
The Open and Repair tool is built in Word app to repair a damaged document, so users can open the file with original formatting kept. It works perfectly when the corruption is caused by storage drive errors or transfer issues.
We also visited tech forums and communities to seek feasible solutions for opening a damaged file without Text Recovery converter. To our surprise, a few of users recommended using Google Docs, because they managed to open their files by dosing so. Therefore, we uploaded several damaged files and tested, it is proved to be useful, but not for all corrupted files. One slightly corrupted file in our tests can be opened in the end.
But how? It is attributed to that Google Docs may bypass the file corruption when reading and rendering the document, it uses a different parsing engine to interpret a non-Google-Doc file. After reconstructing the file, the corrupted parts in the file will be ignored and opened in Google Docs for reading.
If your document contains malicious macros or add-ins, harmful external contents, unsupported file formats, or anything from a untrusted source, the file will be prevented from opening by default. Because the Trust Center is available in Word app to protect your device and data from potential risks. If the file corruption is caused by unsupported sources or contents, you can change the Trust Center settings as follows.
If above methods don’t bring your file back, there is another native way to recover the document within Word app, by reverting to a previous version. Though you cannot recover a wanted version for the corrupted file, you are able to access the latest contents as much as possible.
None of the native options in Word works? Then you need a professional 3rd party tool to recover the document. Cisdem Data Recovery is the best Word Text Recovery converter you should try.
It is designed to recover deleted and lost files from a wide collection of storage devices, including internal C/D/E disks, SD card, USB, external storage drives and so on. But it does more than this, it can repair corrupted documents like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, also can fix damaged videos and photos. Unlike repairing videos with an separate module, Cisdem repair documents when previewing the files. In other words, it is easier and more efficient to recover your documents in Cisdem.
Besides, Cisdem focus on another big concern regarding documents save, it allows users to recover an unsaved file, from Word, Excel, Powerpoint to WPS, PSD and so on. If your daily work involves a lot of document management, then Cisdem Data Recovery is the best solution for you to get a lost file back, for more than 1000 file types.
Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7Free Download macOS 10.15 or later
While standalone programs like Cisdem Data Recovery have dominance, increasing solutions are being done online, and for free. Because users always want to start with a cheaper and easier way to solve their problems.
If you are in this situation, recovery toolbox is a good website to repair your documents online. It can recover corrupted data from a lot of file formats: PDF, AutoCAD, CorelDraw, Excel, Illustrator, Outlook, Photoshop, Powerpoint, Word, etc. However, it is not 100% successful, it depends on how much and how bad the data is corrupted.
Word Text Recovery converter is helpful, but not in all cases. When it is not working and you want to recover the corrupted document, the first question to ask yourself is how badly you want it back, if the file is very important, go straight to Cisdem Data Recovery website and try the app to get your files back, because any attempt to scan and recover the file may put your file in higher risks. If not, use the native options in your Word app.
Connie Yu has been a columnist in the field of data recovery since 2011. She studied a lot of data loss situations and tested repeatedly to find a feasible solution tailored for each case. And her solutions are always updated to fix problems from the newest systems, devices and apps.
