How to repair a DOCX file

Updated: 2025-05-09

Step-by-step instructions on how to repair text from a corrupted Microsoft Word DOCX file:

  1. Download Recovery Toolbox for Word from here: http://recoverytoolbox.com/download/RecoveryToolboxForWordInstall.exe
  2. Install Recovery Toolbox for Word on your computer
  3. Start Recovery Toolbox for Word
  4. Select a corrupted Word file on the first page of the program
  5. Click Analyze
  6. Preview the repaired content from a source Word file
  7. Click Start Recovery

How to repair a corrupted Word file?

Recovery Toolbox for Word is repair tool for extracted text from corrupted Microsoft Word documents (*.doc, *.docx, *.dot, *dotx files) and Rich Text Files (*.rtf).

Microsoft Word repair tool can fix errors in text documents:

  • This document may be corrupt.
  • The file appears to be corrupted.
  • The file is corrupt and cannot be opened.
  • Cannot Locate Microsoft Conversion Library Opening Non-Word File.
  • The Document Template Is Not Valid.
  • A file error has occurred.
  • There is not enough memory or disk space to complete the operation.
  • Word cannot open the document, the file may be in use by another application, the file format may not be supported by any of the installed converters or the file may be corrupt.
  • The Office Open XML file filename.docx cannot be opened because there are problems with the contents.

Recovery Toolbox for Word can repair Word document even if Microsoft Word unable to open (.doc) or (.docx) file.

Recovery Toolbox for Word reads all versions of MS Word documents and repairs Word files corrupted by a virus or antivirus.

Main features of the DOCX repair tool:

  • Repair docx file of Microsoft Word 2007, Word 2010, Word 2013, 2016, 2019 and Word 2021
  • Repair from Word for Microsoft 365
  • Repair Word files of Microsoft Word 95-2003
  • Repair Word documents in ASCII- and Unicode-encoded format
  • Repair doc file by using several advanced algorithms
  • Word doc repair tool can export recovered texts directly into Microsoft Word
  • Save texts to plain text (*.txt) files
  • Multi-language interface of the Microsoft Word document repair tool localized in 14 languages

Requirements:

  • Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10/11 or Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016 and above
Customer's reviews and ratings:
SD 03-10-2025

HELPED A LOT

Sergerator 01-16-2025

Working really good!

clo 01-07-2025

Optimal

MST 12-22-2024

Süper uygulama!!!

memo 12-13-2024

it is good

Michael Spiegel 12-12-2024

The files were on a flash drive, which I used frequently. On November 6, I transferred them onto my laptop to work. When I tried opening them, the files were corrupted.
My only guess is that somehow, they got scrambled during the transfer.

jkis 12-12-2024

good app

Nedelin Balardzhiev 08-22-2024

The recovery of my file was mistaken, but then I received a full refund. I’m grateful for the gesture!

Daniel 06-03-2024

I had been working for weeks on an important academic conference paper when the file became corrupted. I tried everything I could repair it, recover the text, etc. but to no avail. I had almost given up hope when I found Recovery Toolbox. I am SO relieved that it worked!! You literally gave me back days of my life!!

Alain 05-03-2024

The file was recovered successfully. But as soon as I put it back in Google Drive, the problem starts again, it opens it but impossible to work in the file ... I don't know whether Google or Word corrupted the file ... There's a glitch somewhere. Rather complicated story for me. The SupportNex technicians threw in the towel.

Christian Breilid 04-17-2024

This Word document is created with Microsoft Word for Mac application.
My wife has worked with this periodically through the last 8 years. The file has been stored directly on OneDive.
It has worked pretty well. We have replaced the Mac laptop once in this period and we had no issue continuing working with the same file.
What happened suddenly. I guess it was Saturday 06. April. My wife complained to me while trying to open the file that had worked fine the day before, and suddenly came up with a message saying the file was unreadable.
This message popped up while trying to open the file: (Copied from web. The one on my Mac looked the same)


We tried Yes and No but nothing happened.

I have always felt that the file was safe on the cloud drive. But I see now that we cannot..

I did some research on the web and found out that Word has an open and repair function. But with no luck either.
I also found out that it should be possible to open a previous version of the file in the file property. It showed that it should be possible to go back to a previously saved version from Mach 1.
This function didn't work either.

After this I researched the web for different Word repair tools. I Found Recovery Toolbox, which many people claimed was the best and I bought this software..
It did find many pictures in the file for me which is fine, but no text.
I am mostly interested in the text as I have backups of all my pictures.

Tech.suport dep. 02-27-2023

User was working on this legal brief on her up to date mac with word which was fully updated. Saved throughout the day. Seemed fine. Then when checked it the next day was corrupt.
Software helps to user.

Tech.suport dep.

MarkoP 01-31-2023

The external HDD has failed. The data on it has become corrupted. A friend got them out with the help of the Wondershare Repairit program, and now I'm trying to recover Word files with help of this sw.

Sandra Bicher 12-26-2022

Dear Recovery Toolbox Developers Team,

First of all, thank you for creating the recovery Toolbox. It worked wonders.

I am not quite sure what exactly happened. While I included several images into the word document, word broke down and asked me to save my file. After reloading word and opening my document, an error notification popped up and I was not able to access my document anymore. That’s when I panicked, searched the internet for help and found the Recovery toolbox. All of my work (written text, graphs, images) was recovered. So a big thanks to you.

Kind regards,

Guntars Kramēns 11-29-2022

There was problem with flash drive.
Several files was corrupted, and I figured out, that your program recovers other files also

Steve Yoga File 09-29-2022

Yes, thank you. I was making editorial corrections to a yoga script and hit the update key in upper left corner to file all changes. Then I went to close the file and the computer locked up and was several minutes before it became Unfrozen. When I tried to close the open file, the error notices started. That is when I located your product and tried to salvage the file.

Joseph Aumuller 06-17-2022

The files were all on a flash drive, and that flash drive somehow got corrupted. Out of the 500 or so word docs, powerpoints, and pdfs, almost 200 were corrupted. The PowerPoints seem mostly okay, no luck on any of the pdfs, and the word documents were hit and miss, sometimes I got most of the text, other times it wouldn't even open.

Iv 11-29-2021

As free service it is good. But I can pay $10 only for corrupted files.

John 06-06-2021

This program saved many hours worth of work. Being able to download and test the file made the purchase decision easy to make. Great product, easy to use.

Aron Shepard 04-07-2021

The demo version of the program did not find data in my Word 2007 document. It was recovered from a formatted flashcard. Is it possible to repair? File size 17kb.

Melissa Mejia 03-22-2021

The formatted document was corrected by online services. Honestly, the quality is 4

InroadRebec 02-10-2021

Instead of a recently modified document, I got the previous saved version (Word Office 2003, .doc). I will give 4 stars, since it is not clear whose mistake: either MS Word could not save, or the program did not fully repair.

Martyrolatry 01-13-2021

Recovery Tool box for Word was able to recover text with images. Some pictures had to be moved manually as they were on top of the text.

Fardage 12-30-2020

I was sure that the utility would be able to 100% recover my damaged document, since it contained only text and images. But I received only 80% of the recovered document, if you count in 356 pages out of 400. If you have a problem with encoding, then the program makes Word documents readable without loss

Amaia Bentley 12-15-2020

Fixed wrong encoding of .doc file in MS Word 2007.

Elias Black 08-11-2020

I used this program to repair a damaged Microsoft Word 2007 file. During the fix, the text on the second page was restored without formatting, on all the rest it retained its style.

Disembogue 06-29-2020

MS Office 2007 does not read the content of the document because it was damaged due to improper use of the flash drive. The document was repaired well, if you do not take into account the formatting of text and tables.

Trepang 06-15-2020

After I cracked the password of a Word 2007 document and saved it on top of the current document, it started showing the error "A file error has occurred" and stopped opening the file. After restoring the .DOC file, I noticed that the text was restored completely, but without formatting.

Denis 06-03-2020

Good!!!

Onomancy 06-01-2020

When opening a document in MS Office Word, the program cannot find out the encoding of the file. I tried to sort through the available encoding options, but it did not help. An unreadable encoding file was fixed using the software, but since the file was in Turkish, some characters were replaced with Cyrillic.

Doryphore 05-11-2020

I was able to recover a Word file with errors. The recovered .RTF file, after the online fixing, had to be edited, since in some places the spaces between the words were large and in some words there were hieroglyphs (maybe because the document was in Turkish). Text restored at 90%

Steven Boping 12-05-2019

This is very helpful.
I lost some important data on the word doc and made several manual attempt but was unsuccessful.
This online doc recovery toolbox helped me recover my original document.

Thanks a lot.

Steven Boping
Norman Finance Limited
Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

sandeep 09-08-2019

Good

sabir 08-21-2019

thanks a lot

Dr. Corina Ionescu 11-30-2018

I used the services of the company, online, just two days ago. Even with using a new SDD external harddisk, with one day before the deadline to submit some papers, suddenly, I couldn't open the documents, because they were "corrupted". I really panicked and I found this company on the web. As the price was fairly low (even for an SE Europe scientist, as I am), I submitted one document, just to try. The answer came fast. It was, let's say, 90% saved (the images were missing but this was not a problem). Immediately I submitted the second and most important document, an article. I was very upset because I worked several months for it (my mistake, not to save it on the main computer, at least each second week). I got the recovered document, with an absolutely perfect content. Even now, I am still astonished how well the document was recovered (only the fonts and some formatting were different). Thanks again, Prof.Dr. Corina Ionescu- Babes-Bolyai University, Geology Department, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Tim C 08-25-2018

I used the software to recover 2 documents, only half the info was restored. Better than nothing.

nelson Donis 08-07-2018

IS COOL

F.Smith 06-07-2018

Tool can recover all text.
But images and tables was not repaired.

OldCustomer 05-11-2018

Best of the Word doc recovery tried (not saying much). Recovered a partial version of a file, but it was a version several saves prior.

DAVEFRENCIS 05-11-2018

Product can be applied every to old PCs. Not for free and costs not a little.

JOHNTOMSON 05-11-2018

My word docs were completely recovered. It's all what I wanted.