Recovering text from Word documents (Part 1)

If Microsoft Word runs into a problem with a file it usually offers a recover option when you open the program the next time. But sometimes this option is not given to you, and you have to try to recover text from a corrupted file manually.

To do this pull down the 'File' menu in Word and select 'Open...' to see the appropriate dialog box. From the 'Files of type' drop-down list select 'Recover Text from Any File'. Then browse to the file you wish to try to recover text, select it, and click the 'Open' button. With any luck Word will extract the text from that file. This process may work with files of types that Word does not support too.

In the second part of the article I will look at what to do if this method fails.