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Can't open Word document: error message. Why does Word give an error when trying to open a file, what should I do? Why can't I open a file in Word on my mobile device? I can't open a word document

Quite often, users come to me with the following problem: a Word document cannot open on their computer. There are several reasons for this. As experience tells me, the most common of them is the simple lack of a text editor - a program that can work with such documents. Accordingly, the operating system does not know what to do with such files and sends the user to the forest. In this case, all Word documents do not open, and not just one in particular. The solution seems simple - install the program. But not everything is as easy as it seems at first glance!

How to open a Word file without Microsoft Office

You won’t be able to just install the Word or Excel application separately - you need to install the Microsoft Office office suite. If it is licensed, then it is expensive, very expensive. If it’s unlicensed, then firstly it’s illegal, and secondly you have to find it without catching the virus. There are simpler and more convenient options.

1.WinWord

Since early versions, the Windows operating system has had a built-in document editor - WinWord. If Windows itself does not open the document through WinWord, this can be done by right-clicking on the file and selecting the “Open with” menu item.

Of course, it is simple and suitable for the simplest actions, but when you need to quickly open a Word document and edit it is quite suitable.

2. Google Docs

In cases where WinWord's capabilities are not enough, you can use the excellent online tool Google Docs.

This is an entire office complex that allows you to work with Word documents, Excel tables and PowerPoint presentations without installing editors. Everything is done online - the main thing is to have access to the Internet. At the same time, there is one cool feature - shared access to a file for many users at once from any corner of the world where there is access to the World Wide Web.

3. LibreOffice

But in cases where you will constantly open Word documents on your computer, it is better to install an office suite. If it is not possible to install Microsoft Office, you can always install free LibreOffice.

You can download it for free from the official website. This office suite works quickly and is in no way inferior in capabilities to its famous competitor.

Word file is corrupted

This is the second most popular reason why a Word document won't open. At the same time, any other documents open without problems. If you downloaded it from the Internet, try downloading it again. If the document was sent by mail, ask the sender to resend it. If you can’t open a Word file on a flash drive or other removable media, try copying it to your computer and opening it directly from it.

If none of the proposed methods worked, then you most likely will not be able to open a damaged Word file. If it is very important, then you should try using file recovery programs like Recovery Toolbox for Word. Alternatively, you can use special online services. One of the most popular is Online File Repair Service. It can work with *.doc, *.docx, *.dot, *.dotx or *.rtf files and will be able to provide the text that can still be recovered.

ATTENTION! This article was translated not by a human, but by a machine translation program developed by Microsoft. Microsoft provides you with both human- and machine-translated articles so you can read KB Knowledge Base articles in your native language. However, machine translation is not always perfect. It may contain semantic, syntactical and grammatical errors, just as a foreigner makes mistakes when trying to speak your language. Microsoft is not responsible for any inaccuracies, errors, or damages resulting from mistranslations or misuse of translations. Microsoft also frequently updates machine translation tools.

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Symptoms

Word is one of the most popular text editors. Basically, in order to open a document in doc format that is read by a text editor, no effort is required from the user. However, there are times when the document does not open. The reasons for this may be different, so in this article we will look at them in detail.

Also in the article you can find information on how to open documents in doc format and other text formats using similar text editors from Microsoft.

How to open a text document using word

Another reason could be that your text editor is outdated. You can easily update it on the Microsoft website, however, if you used a key obtained illegally, you will have to pay for the new version.

At the same time, Microsoft offers free analogues of the word text editor. We are talking about so-called viewer programs. They allow you to open and view as well as print text. However, their functionality is very limited compared to the full package. You can download these analogues using these links:

ExcelViewer.exe - Excel file viewer;
- Word file viewer.

On the latest versions of PCs and laptops with the Windows 7 operating system installed, in most cases, Office Starter 2010 is initially installed. There are failures in the operating system in which Word and Excel files cannot be opened. If files on your computer cannot be opened, you need to try reinstalling the office package; it is quite simple and will not take much time.

You will need

- instructions for reinstalling the software package.

Instructions

The most accessible and fastest way to open a file on your computer is to reinstall Office Starter 2010. This is not at all as difficult and scary as many people think. The following description concerns the Windows 7 operating system. Go to the “Start” menu, then select the “Control Panel” option.

The next tab is “Uninstall programs”. Select Microsoft Office Starter 2010. You need to select the “Uninstall” command and confirm it. Do not check the “Delete all settings” box; you will need them to further restore the program.

Then go to the Start menu, select Microsoft Office Starter 2010 there, click on this option. A dialog box will appear giving you several options for what you can do at this point. Select the “Use” option.

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On a PC, not paying attention to the warnings that at some point, for various reasons, a failure may occur, as a result of which the operating system or software will crash. The file may also become damaged and you will not be able to open it again.

Surely many have encountered a situation where an important document was created using the Microsoft Word office application, but when the need arose to open it, a message appeared in front of the user, informing them that the file was damaged and could not be opened. If a lot of effort was put into creating it and it is of any value, such a message can trigger a heart attack.

To protect your health and not worry again when such a notification occurs, it is better to familiarize yourself with the recommendations on how to open a damaged Word file.

The developers of Microsoft Office software, anticipating such emergency situations, took care of methods for restoring damaged files. In this regard, it is initially important to figure out how to restore a damaged Word file without resorting to the use of third-party tools or software.

Microsoft Word functionality

If a document typed in Microsoft Word has been slightly changed, as a result of which it no longer opens correctly, you can easily restore it and resume working with it using the capabilities of the office application itself.

To do this, you should first open a new document. Next, in the top menu bar, you need to hover the mouse cursor over the “File” group, a context menu will immediately open, in the list of which you need to find the “Open” line. Now a selection window appears in which you should specify the path where the damaged document is saved.

Typically, the user clicked on a button that led to opening a document. In this case, you should open a list of additional options by clicking on the drop-down menu. This is where you can easily find the "Open and Restore" prompt. If, indeed, the document has not undergone catastrophic changes, the office application will be able to easily revive it.

Even if such attempts are unsuccessful, you should not fall into despair, since there are other possibilities for document recovery.

Recovery using third-party software

If it is impossible to open an important document using an office application, there are other ways to achieve the stated goal. Experienced users offer valuable recommendations on how to recover a damaged Word document using special software or service resources.

Potential of online services

On the wide expanses of the Internet, it is easy to find many services that offer effective assistance in case of serious damage to documents when the office application itself could not fix the problem.

One such service is online.officerecovery.com. The resource is absolutely clear, so even a beginner will find it easy to understand.

Upon entering the site, you should first select a document, indicating the path where it is saved on your PC. When opening, it is important to take into account that if the document is accompanied by a set password, you must enter it in a special window, otherwise all attempts made will simply be unsuccessful.

After this, all you have to do is click on the “Safe” button. The process is short, takes about two minutes. Upon completion, the user will be shown a small piece of the recovered document. If it is unreadable, it means that it was so damaged that it is difficult to restore it even with powerful resources. If everything is fine, you can request the full text of the document. Unfortunately, this resource is paid, so you will have to pay for the services. Many users agree, especially in cases where the file is of great value.

This online service is not the only one; there are many others, some of which are free.

Special software

You can also download special programs that are equipped with functions for restoring damaged documents. Among them is Recovery Toolbox for Word. The program is easy to use, does not take up much space on your hard drive, so it can be used on “weak” machines.

After starting the program, the user must again indicate the location where the document that is important to be restored is saved. Next, the program conducts an analysis, after which it immediately starts the recovery process.

Recovery Toolbox for Word is a powerful tool with which you can revive even seriously damaged documents.

So, there are several ways to fix the problem associated with the inability to open any document created in Word. If the file is of value, it is important to try all methods, including paid resources.

There are several reasons why the “The file cannot be opened because there are problems with its contents” error occurs in Word. If MS Office is English, the message will look like this: “We’re sorry. We can’t open “FileName” because we found a problem withits contents".

How to resolve the error “The file cannot be opened because there are problems with its contents”

The easiest way to correct an error that occurs when opening a Word document is to right-click on the file and select the “Restore previous version” option.

Very often this happens due to incorrect saving of the file. It is saved in the wrong format. To fix this, you need to restore the correct format. In this case, Word will display a message that the file is damaged and will offer to restore it. You must confirm your consent to restoration. After this procedure, if the operation is completed successfully, the information will open.

Also, the error “The file cannot be opened due to problems with its contents” may occur if the “hidden file” attribute is set in the properties.
In this case, when you select “Details,” the message “The file has been damaged” appears. Next, the recovery wizard will prompt you to “Try restoring the contents?” Here we must agree.
In most cases, the recovery is successful, but sometimes it happens that the system displays the error “the file has been blocked to protect the computer.”
In this case, regardless of the user’s choice (the options include: unlock, confirm the file format during conversion, restore via Office), most likely there will be hieroglyphs instead of text.

Then you need to try opening this document with a third-party application, for example, Notepad. To try to save the contents you need to:

Right-click on the file;
Select “Open with” from the drop-down menu;
Select Notepad;
If there is no such item in the menu, you must click “Select another application”;
A new dialog box will open. In it, scrolling is available on the right;
You also need to select Notepad;
If the required application is not in this list, you need to scroll to the end of the list and select the option “Find another application on this computer;
A new dialog box will open with the "Open with" option;
Next, you need to specify the location of the Notepad.exe program (most often it is located: C:\WINDOWS\system32\notepad.exe;
Confirm your choice.

For example, Microsoft Office files will be displayed in hieroglyphs with words starting with the letters "PK". Another situation may occur, for example, the document opens empty, then the contents are lost.

How to recover lost data after an error

To recover lost files, you can use recovery programs. Recuva is considered one of the simplest and highest quality. But such a restoration has its drawbacks. The main one is the time factor. The program may take several hours to complete. This means that it is useless if the file needs to be restored urgently.

In this case, you can try another method. You need to open the archiver file and select document.xml. All edits in document.xml are carried out in any text file editor. Further instructions are given in great detail in this manual. It will be useful to users who understand what tags are and how to work with them.

Often the source of this error is the formulas that the user tries to add to the document. The main way to solve the problem is that the name of the end tag of the element must be identical to the start tag.

To prevent this from happening to documents, it is recommended to regularly backup important files. To do this, you can use both paid and free programs. Among free programs, Handy Backup is considered the undisputed leader. It is also recommended to store at least one copy on removable media (usbflash or usbhdd).

In addition, it is necessary to regularly update your computer software and check it for viruses. This is the only way to protect yourself and your documents from errors such as “The file cannot be opened due to problems with its contents.”

When you try to open an Excel workbook, a Word document or a PowerPoint presentation with Excel, Word, or PowerPoint, the following errors may occur:

The file doesn’t open in the expected application. For instance, an Excel workbook doesn’t open in Excel 2019; instead, it opens in another app or an older version of Excel.

An error indicating a file association problem may occur. For instance, you may get an error similar to “ This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. please install a program or if one is already installed create an associate in the default programs control panel"

“This action is only valid for products that are currently installed”

Note: If you"ve tried to open an Excel workbook but instead Excel only opens a blank screen see: Excel 2016 opens to a blank screen .

Fix it for me

Click this easy fix button to attempt to resolve this issue.

Select your browser from the drop-down list to see how to save and then launch the file.

Save.

In the next box that indicates officefile.diagcab is finished downloading, click Open.

Next and follow the prompts.

At the bottom of the browser window, select Open to open the officefile.diagcab file.

If the file doesn't open automatically, choose Save > Open Folder, and then double-click the file (it should start with " officefile") to run the easy fix tool.

The Office File Association wizard launches. Select Next and follow the prompts.

In the lower-lower left corner select the officefile file and from the drop down, select Show in folder.

Double-click the download, officefile, to run the easy fix tool.

The Office File Association wizard launches. Select Next and follow the prompts.

Select Save File, and then OK.

In the upper-right browser window, select Show all downloads. In the Library, select Downloads > officefile.diagcab, and then select the folder icon. Double-click the officefile.

The Office File Association wizard launches. Select Next and follow the prompts.

Run a Quick Repair to fix the file association problem

Click the Start button

Note: Start > Control Panel

Choose Programs > Programs and Features.

Next, select the Office product you want to repair and then choose Change.

Choose the Quick Repair option and then choose Repair.

For more information about the repair option in Office, go to Repair an Office application.

If that doesn't resolve the issue try manually associating the files to the correct app.

Manually associate files to the correct Office app

If you have multiple versions of Microsoft Office...

Consider uninstalling the versions you don"t need. To do that:

Click the Start button

Note: If you"re using Windows 7, just click Start > Control Panel then you can skip to step 3, below.

Type and choose "Control Panel"

Choose Uninstall a Program and select the version of Office you want to remove.

Click Uninstall.

Restart your computer.

Having too many versions of Office on your computer can cause issues, including files opening in the wrong version of Office.

Tip: In some cases you"ll get your best result by uninstalling ALL versions of Office, then reinstalling just the version you want.

If all else fails..

You should still be able to open your file by opening the application first, then opening the file from there. To do that:

Start the program needed to access your document; Word, Excel or PowerPoint

When the program opens, click File> Open, find your file in the file navigator and open it.

The article will tell you how to solve the problem if the Word document does not open.

Software package " Microsoft Office» has gained its popularity among users due to the opportunities provided and high-quality work. But still, with it, like with any other software, certain problems occur.

For example, sometimes users encounter a problem where it is not possible to open " Word» document, despite the fact that the file was recently opened normally.

This would not be so bad if the document did not contain important information. In any case, such a problem must be solved, and in this review we will talk about why the document does not come off " Word 2007/2010/2013/2016" and gives an error.

The document “Word 2007/2010/2013/2016” does not open and gives an error

Why won't my Microsoft Word document open, and what is this error?

When the document Word" does not open, we see a corresponding pop-up window on the screen with an error notification. As a rule, the system tells us that the file is damaged and cannot be opened. But in fact, the file may not open for this reason. There may be several reasons for this, for example the following:

In the document " Word“There are a huge number of different figures, tables, formulas, and an error may occur due to the fact that the text editor did not understand their codes. Perhaps they were saved incorrectly, and the program does not understand what needs to be opened.
Document " Word"was saved in the wrong format before attempting to open it
Have you tried to open a document " Word" of a newer version using a text editor of an older version (specifically using " Word 2003"). In this case, you just need to update your “ Word».
« Word» does not open questionable documents downloaded from the Internet

How to solve the problem if the Word document does not open?

Now let's look at several ways we can fix this error.

Recovering a document using Microsoft Word

Text editor " Word» can help us fix the damaged document and resolve it. If you have a problem opening a document " Word", then initially try to fix the problem in the following way:

Close the error notification window
Launch " Word" through " Start"or a shortcut on the Desktop (or in the folder where the program is installed).
Click on " File", then click in the left menu on " Open", then - to " Review” and find on the computer the document that does not open. But just don’t open it!
Select this document
Now in the window through which we searched for the file, click on the black arrow (as shown in the screenshot) next to the “ Open" In the drop-down list, click on “ Open and restore».

In the drop-down list, click on “Open and restore”

After these operations, the document should open. But keep in mind that it may contain certain changes made during the recovery process. Click on " Show corrections" and you will see what has been changed. This way you can correct these changes. Next, save the document.

But, if the method described above did not help you in any way, then we will use other methods.

Recovering a document using a backup converter

The backup converter is included with the package " Microsoft Office" If you do not have a complete package, or are missing any additional components, then install the converter separately (using the settings " Microsoft Office"), you can find out how this is done on the Internet.

So, we do the following:

Launch " Word", as in the previous case (in the installation folder, shortcut or through " Start»)
Let's go to " File—Open—Review»
In the window that opens " Conductor» at the top of the buttons « Cancel" And " Open"There will be a drop-down list, click on it, after which the list will open.
Select " Recover text from any file"And through the same window, open the document you need.

Select “Recover text from any file” and through the same window open the document you need

After this, the document should open. But if the problem reappears, and when you open the document again, an error occurs due to the corruption of the table in the document, do the following. Select this table and on the toolbar go to “ Table—Convert—Table to text».

Changing Protected View settings

If the above options do not help you, then consider another method. It happens that the program " Word» does not disclose documents that were taken from the Internet. This happens due to the fact that " Word» protects us from the disclosure of unknown documents. If you are sure that this document does not contain viruses, then you can use this method.

We will disable the protection:

Launch " Word", go to " File—Options»
In the settings window that opens, go to “ Trust Center—Trust Center Settings—Protected Browsing».
Uncheck all items and click on “ OK" If this does not help us open the document we need " Word", then we will return all the settings back.

Uncheck all the boxes and click “OK”

Removing Word add-ons

If you can’t open a particular document “ Word", then in some cases the cause of the problem may be the editor itself, or rather its add-ons. These add-ons need to be removed, and to do this we do the following:

Launch " Word", after which a notification should pop up stating that an error occurred during the previous launch, and you will be asked to enter the program in safe mode. We agree to this (click on “ OK»).
Next we go to “ File—Options—Add-ons»
At the bottom of the window that opens, click on “ Go»
In the new window, check the boxes next to all the presented items and click “ OK»

At the bottom of the window that opens, click on “Go”

Restoring the document format

Often the document Word» does not open because we assigned it the wrong format when saving it the previous time (or we simply made a mistake when entering the name, also correcting the extension). Here you can correct the error by assigning the correct format: " .docx" or " .doc" after the title of the document.

But the document may be damaged, so we will act a little differently:

Create an empty document " Word" and at the end of its name we write " .rar", that is, we convert it into an archive.
Now let’s convert our damaged document into an archive in exactly the same way, adding the mentioned symbols at the end of the name.
Next, we save the new archive with the transferred information and again convert it into a document “ Word", writing at the end " .docx».
Next, we launch the document, after which the editor may offer to restore the information