Corrupt Word Document
Recovery Freeware

Quick Links

• http://www.s2services.com/hosted-freeware/lasrlite.zip - With this program, if a Word file gets corrupt, you can undelete all Word files and find an earlier temporary version that Windows stored then deleted.

• http://www.repairmyword.com/ - Repair My Word is a data recovery program for Microsoft Word documents. It is designed to recover text from damaged or corrupt Word files (.doc files) that will not open normally.

• http://www.mitec.cz/systools.htm#SSV  - take apart office files into their components (e.g. - text and images etc.) helpful possibly for corrupt files.

• http://docfileviewer.wedding-soft.com/ - Very small program that can help you with your compound files needs.

• http://www.menees.com/index.html - another Doc File viewer.

• http://users.iafrica.com/d/da/dart/zen/Source/ByLang/Delphi/DocFileUt... - Yet another one.

• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/139545 - a free Microsoft one.

The methods here for getting formatted document recovery might be about 20%.  To get just your text back with text extractors, we are talking maybe over 50%.  The latter type of recovery is fairly painless.

More Detail

• Free MS Word Compatible Word Processors - you can try opening your corrupt Word file in another word processor and hope it won't be as finicky.  In addition to those listed in this section, please take a look at the free Office suites page in this site as they all include a Word processor that will open Word documents (there are about 5 of them including Open Office).

• Free MS Word Compatible Viewers - there are limited programs which will at least display Word documents and there is a chance one of these might open a corrupt Word document.

• Misc. Corrupt Word Recovery - so far I've only found one program to fit in here and it's not very good, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled.

• Text Extractors - if nothing else you might be able to recover your text.

Please note: Honestly the commercial software and services is the route you will sometimes have to take to recover your data.  That's not to discount the large number of high quality data recovery freeware generously given away by developers, that you can see here.  On those occasions that you try the freeware and it doesn't work, the software in these pages will appear not be worth the time and effort you put in and this can be frustrating. I try to point out at the top of each page, what I see is the likelihood that and difficulty with which freeware can recover your data.

The Google Adsense Ads displayed on the pages should lead you to the standard commercial software and services available for the problem you are having. You can also try the commercial links by clicking on the Navigation Bar by that name on the left. It's also here.

To see if the program works before buying, always be sure to try the demos of commercial software first. Also the difference in prices for software that does the same thing, for instance recovering PowerPoint Presentations, can be a large range like with PowerPoint case $50 - 299. If possible, try several software solutions before buying.  For services, be sure there is a no data, no fee guarantee, and a recovered file preview available.

I can also provide help but am limited ethically and financially (and legally in many cases) to using freeware too. I am perfectly within bounds to use most of the existing commercial office suites to recover corrupt office files since I paid for licenses for all of them. If you need help, I charge $22 for the first half hour and $22 for unlimited time after that. You can E-mail me at socrtwo@s2services.com.