Repair the Damaged MS Word Document

Home users, professionals, editors, and writers for their day-to-day tasks use Microsoft Word. The documents created in Word are saved in .doc format or in .docx format depending on the version of Word you use. If you use Word 97, 98, 2000, 2002, or 2003 then the document name will be followed by .doc extension. But, in case Word 2007 is used then the document gets saved in .docx (XML) format. Whether you use Word 2007 or earlier version, documents can be damaged anytime due to power sabotage, sudden system shutdown, etc.

When a Word file gets damaged due to aforementioned reasons then header structure of the file gets corrupt. Due to damage of the header when you try to open the document, Word refuses to open it and displays an error message. That error message indicates that the document you trying to open in not a valid document, which means, you need to repair the it if you want to reuse the data it contains.

It may happen that the document contains lots of valuable data that you might have written with lots of efforts. Your substantial time has been spent in collecting and creating all those datat. And losing such an important data can be very shocking. But, you don't need to worry because in this article you will know a simple process to recover data from the damaged Word document. Execute the following steps to repair the damaged .doc or .docx document:

1. Navigate to the folder where the damaged .doc or .docx document is available. The damaged document can be identified by its name as the name gets changed to some alphabetical name like AA345D, OX2548O, etc.

2. Right-click the damaged document and select the Rename option.

3. Rename the document with a desired name following by .doc extension or with .docx extension. If the document was created using MS Word version lower than 2007 then rename it with .doc extension else rename with .docx extension.

Now, you can access the document with respective MS Word version. This is how you can save you from data loss in just three steps.

Note: This process can only help you repair the Word file that has been damaged due to abrupt system shut down.

Know Technical Writing Tools

There are various technical writing tools available in the market that are being used in creating high-quality end-user documents, online software help guides, and image capturing and editing. The tools help a technical writer in representing the available information in a well structured and understandable format. Technical writing tools can be divided in the following categories:

• Publishing Tools
These are the very basic tools of technical writing. A technical writer must have hand on experience of using at least one of the publishing tools. These tools help a technical writer to perform tasks, such as creating a technical document, formatting text for easy readability, and inserting tables and graphics in the documents. The most commonly used publishing tools are MS-Word and Adobe FrameMaker.

• Image Capturing and Graphics Tools
A technical document may contain graphics and illustrations to diagrammatically represent the information. A technical writer does not need to be an expert in using the image capturing and graphics tools but should have basic knowledge about capturing, editing, and creating illustrations. Some of the most commonly used image capturing and graphics tools are: SnagIT, FullShot, Adobe Photoshop, and Corel Draw.

• Help Tools
These tools are used to create desktop or Web-based software help files in various formats, such as .htm, .rtf, and .chm. Some of the help tools are: RoboHelp, ForeHelp, HTMLHelp Workshop, and Doc to Help. But, RoboHelp is widely used in technical writing because it provides various templates to create element specific help, such as JavaHelp and OracleHelp.

• Web Tools
These tools are used to design Web pages; therefore, to use a Web tool, a technical writer must have good knowledge about Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML). It is the basis of designing WebPages. The most commonly used Web tools are: DreamWeaver and MS-FrontPage.

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