Corrupted Word file fixes - was: Converted Word file grows enormously
Diane Gaskill
dgcaller at earthlink.net
Thu Jul 26 23:28:34 PDT 2007
Michael,
I have seen this MANY times. We are converting to FM at my company now (finally - thank God) but we have many large (400 to 800 page) Word docs that contain lots of embedded drawings, screenshots, and even photos. Documents like this are easily corrupted because Word has some really bad memory bugs, not to mention the notorius autonumbering bug - I mean auto-selfrenunbering bug.
Most of the corruption in a Word doc is contained in the last paragraph mark (that's where all the metadata (file descriptors, etc) is contained.)) But corruptions can also be contained in section breaks.
There are a couple of ways to fix the problem. First, the easy way, although this might not fix it.
1. Launch Word but do not open any files.
2. Using Explorer, locate the file you are having trouble with and note the file size. Write it down.
3. SINGLE click the file to highlight it. Do NOT double click the file and open it.
4. With the file highlighted, in Word, select File -> Open. The Open File dialog box is displayed.
5. In the lower right corner of the dialog box there is a button that says Open. To the right of the button is a pull down menu.
Expand the menu and select Open and Repair. Word will open the highlighted file, analyze it, and fix a lot of the corruption.
6. Save the file and then note the file size. If there is a difference from the original file size, you might have a clean file. If not, go to the next procedure.
Personal note: You gotta know the Gates & Co KNOWS that Word is a pile of you-know-what. How many other applications do you know that have an Open and Repair button. Sheesh.
The hard Way
Well, it's not really hard, just time consuming.
1. Launch Word but don't open any files.
2. Select Tools > Options > File Locations. Note the path to User Templates.
3. Exit Word. Shut it down compeltely.
4. Go to whereever the path you saw in step 2 takes you and delete Normal.dot. That's right, delete it. Or, if you have modified it (that's a big no-no) just move it to another directory.
5. Launch Word again. When Word does not find Normal.dot, it will build a nice, clean, new one with no corruptions at all.
[If you are fast, you probably know where I am going with this.]
6. Now, create a brand new doc in Word. It will automatically use the nice, clean, new Normal template. Leave this file open, but do not save it.
7. Now open your corrupted doc. See the bugs crawling around on the screen. (ok, ok, I just threw that in for fun).
8. Turn on hidden text (the Paragraph mark in the menu) so that you can see the paragraph marks.
9. Copy everything in your file EXCEPT the last paragraph mark.
10. Paste that into the clean new Word doc you already have open.
11. Save under a new name. Don't overwrite the corrupted file.
12. Note the file size.
If the above procedure doesnt't reduce the file size a lot, do this:
1. Open another new, clean doc.
2. Open youir original, corrupted file again. In your corrupted file, delete ALL of the section breaks. The headers and footers will not work any more because the metada for them is in the section breaks. You will have to create them all again later. This could take a while, depending on the size of your doc.
3. Copy everything in your file EXCEPT the last paragraph mark.
4. Paste that into the clean new Word doc you already have open.
5. Save under a new name. Don't overwrite the corrupted file.
6. Note the file size.
7. Attach your original template, ficx the section breaks, and you should have a clean, uncorrupted file.
For more information go to the Word MVP website http://word.mvps.org/.
Also check out this page on the site:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm
The tiele of the page is:
How can I recover a corrupt document or template – and why did it become corrupt?
Hope this helps.
Diane Gaskill
-----------------------
-----Original Message-----
>From: O'Laoghaire Micheal <Micheal.OLaoghaire at comverse.com>
>Sent: Jul 26, 2007 12:34 PM
>To: Art Campbell <art.campbell at gmail.com>
>Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com
>Subject: RE: Converted Word file grows enormously
>
>Art,
>Thanks for replying.
>There is merit in what you say but I have converted quite a number of
>documents with embedded graphics without encountering this problem.
>There is sonething unique about this document but I have not been able
>to figure it out.
>
>
>Regards,
>Micheal O'Laoghaire
>KBS Documentation
>Comverse Inc.
>Cambridge, MA.
>
>Tel: (617) 273-5414
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Art Campbell [mailto:art.campbell at gmail.com]
>Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 2:30 PM
>To: O'Laoghaire Micheal
>Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com
>Subject: Re: Converted Word file grows enormously
>
>My first guess would be that there were graphics embedded in the Word
>file that are now embedded in the FM file and are being converted to FM
>vector graphics.
>
>The better way to do this is to separate the graphics from Word before
>importing (by saving as an HTML file to spin the graphics files off),
>save the Word file as RTF (many people prefer text) and open that in FM.
>Them importing the graphics by reference.
>
>Art
>
>On 7/26/07, O'Laoghaire Micheal <Micheal.OLaoghaire at comverse.com> wrote:
>> I converted a pretty large Word document by opening it in Frame, first
>
>> saving it as a MIF, then saving it as FM The FM file initially
>> appeared pretty OK. However after I scrolled throug the file (without
>> making ANY changes), then saved it, the file grew enormously in size.
>>
>> Some specs:
>>
>> Initial Word document had about 256 pages, a TOC, lots of tables and
>> embedded graphics Almost everything seemed to make it through the
>> conversion OK. Perhaps a handful of graphics were dropped.
>>
>> FILE SIZE (MB)
>>
>> Original Word file 5.0
>>
>> MIF File after Conversion 11
>>
>> FM file from MIF File (initial) 3.1
>>
>> FM file after a litle scrolling 13
>>
>> FM file after a little more scrolling 38
>>
>> Final FM file size ~ 68
>>
>> I also tried copying/pasting the contents of newly-converted file into
>
>> a 'clean' new file.
>>
>> The size of that FM File 72 MB
>>
>> I also tried cnverting the initial Word file to RTF, then converting
>> the RTF to MIF and FM. However, the results were the same.
>>
>> The behavior is also very consistent and repeatable.
>>
>> I have also converted quite a number of other Word docs to Frame
>> lately without eny evidence of similar problems.
>>
>>
>>
>> Question:
>> Has anyone seen this behavior before?
>> Do you have any ideas of what the possible cause is (other than
>> "something in the Word file is corrupted"), as well as possible fixes
>> and/orworkarounds?
>>
>> Micheal O'Laoghaire
>> KBS Documentation
>> Comverse Inc.
>> Cambridge, MA.
>>
>> Tel: (617) 273-5414
>
>
>--
>Art Campbell
>art.campbell at gmail.com
> "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent
> and a redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson
> No disclaimers apply.
> DoD 358
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