Recovering Corrupt Document Files with StarOffice

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 15, 2018)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

I had a problem this week working on a 500K Word document for a client. Word 97 crashed on his system, corrupting the document. Trying to load the file into his Word 97 or my Word 2000 caused both applications to crash on start up and even bring up Dr. Watson. I had a backup for the document, but had lost about two hours worth of work.

It is interesting that Sun StarOffice 5.2 read the corrupted Word file without problem, although one section of text was not recoverable. Saving the file from StarOffice as a Word document file and loading it back into Word recovered the situation.

Well done, Sun--a recovery system for Microsoft Word!

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1513) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Emoticons in Word

Like to add a smiley or two to your writing? Word makes it easy through creative use of the AutoCorrect feature.

Discover More

Turning Off Screen Updating

Want a quick way to speed up your macros? All you need to do is to stop Excel from updating the screen while the macro is ...

Discover More

Understanding Monospace Fonts

Information in a worksheet needs to be displayed using fonts. If you understand the two different types of fonts ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More WordTips (menu)

Using the Organizer to Manage Toolbars

The Organizer is a great tool for managing different elements that can be stored in documents and templates. This tip ...

Discover More

Small Red Dots under Addresses

Does your document have all sorts of different colored underlines on it? Tracking down what most of them are can be easy, ...

Discover More

Displaying Quick Document Statistics

Need to see how many pages, words, paragraphs, or lines are in your document? Word makes it easy to retrieve such ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is nine more than 6?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.