Addressing Corrupt or Damaged Document Issues

Have you ever heard this about discovering a corrupt or damaged document: “If you haven't seen it happen yet, you just haven't seen it happen yet.” Or perhaps you're one of those rare individuals who only creates documents from scratch, doesn't reuse existing documents, won't copy and paste information from one document to another, and never allows anyone else into that document for editing purposes. But even if you are one of those rare individuals, chances are, you'll encounter document corruption sooner or later.

This introduction is not meant to discourage you, but rather enlighten you to a few facts: 1) you're not alone; 2) there are methods for salvaging your documents; and 3) there are best practice tips to help alleviate the possibility of introducing corruption into your document.

An attorney's words are his or her livelihood. Beyond the research, and knowledge of the law, all of that information has to go somewhere. And generally, it goes onto paper, or from the spoken word to the judge, jury, opposing counsel, client ' you know the rest. Let's focus on what you've put on paper and how not to have to re-type anything should a document become corrupt.

What Causes Document Corruption?

The reasons mentioned in the opening paragraph are only the most common causes. A few others are:

1. Direct formatting rather than using styles;
2. Fast Saves turned on in the Word 2002 or lower version (this feature also introduces metadata into the document);
3. Nested tables;
4. Using Word's Document Map view;
5. The system is running low on resources and should be rebooted;
6. Using the x of y page field;
7. Choosing “Save As” to put a file on an external media, instead of Copy or Send to; and
8. Corrupt Normal.dot, on which all blank documents are based unless a template is used.

How to Avoid Corrupting a Document

Before we look at several tips designed to avoid document corruption, realize that the root of corruption occurs in Word, specifically located in the last or any paragraph marker of the document, section breaks and the end of row marker in a table. Here's a glimpse at some best practices:

1. Never save your personal or firm macros, custom toolbars and menus, or Auto Text to Word's Normal.dot. In the event that Normal.dot becomes damaged, you will need to delete it and let Word create a fresh Normal.dot the next time you start Word. Keep your customizations in a separate template for safekeeping.
2. Make use of templates. A template is a special file that ideally contains styles, page formatting, text, logos, pleading captions, signature block, Auto Text, or anything else of which you make common use. Templates help to ensure that all new documents based on that template will not carry legacy corruption from a document on which you may have copied over, or performed a “Save As.”
3. Never paste text from one document to another. Always use the “Paste Special>>Unformatted Text” feature. Apply the appropriate Style to the pasted text. Using Unformatted Text will help to ensure that any corruption is not pasted. Reapplying the Styles may take a few minutes, but it beats having to retype any or all of your text.
4. I'm going out on a limb here, but your legal assistant more than likely has the skills (or perhaps the time) to produce a sound and well-formatted document as you continue to practice law. Or, if you could just type your text into a new document based on a template, identifying the paragraph numbers, he/she can quickly apply the styles needed. This may lessen your temptation to take text from other documents, or to reuse another document.
5. If you are going to reuse another document (and let's face it, this is a common practice), then I would suggest this: Get a brand new document, preferably from a template, copy the text from the other document and use the Paste Special>>Unformatted Text feature. Apply your styles. It's probably best to have a printout of the previous document so you can follow the desired formatting, particularly when you've got multiple levels of paragraph numbering.
6. Limit the number of people who will be editing your document. You may take these best practice tips to heart, but the other editor(s) may not.
7. Don't use old documents. I've researched the history of files in the past, and have found some that originated in WordPerfect many years prior.

Recovering a Damaged Document

Here are a few tried and true options for recovering a damaged document. Whereas some may require that the document be reformatted, you won't need to retype. Please note: As always, make a copy of your file before repairing, or experimenting with any new features.

Open and Repair

Beginning with Microsoft Office 2002, a feature was added to “Open and Repair” a file. Go to “File>>Open” and browse to the file. Select (highlight) it but do not open it. With the file selected, click the arrow next to the Open button. Choose “Open and Repair.” If Word detects any damage, you will be presented with a “Show Repairs” dialog. It is not intuitive, and there is nothing you can do with it besides click the Close button. Save, Close, and reopen your file to determine if you still have an issue. Sometimes the Detect and Repair feature cannot truly repair the file. But sometimes it can, and when it does, it's a quick solution.

Insert the Document into Another Document

I mentioned earlier that one location in which the corruption may reside is the final paragraph marker of the document. This technique will not transfer that last paragraph marker. Create a new (blank) document (preferably from a template). In Word 2007, click the “Insert Ribbon.” Click the arrow next to the Object button and choose “Text from File.” Browse to the corrupt document and click the Insert button. In previous versions of Word, simply click the Insert menu, and choose Insert File, browse to the corrupt document and click the Insert button. Save, Close, and reopen this file to determine if you still have an issue.

Save the Document to .xml Format and Back

On occasion, saving the file to this .xml format and back has been known to repair the damaged file. Open the document and choose “File>>Save As.” At the bottom of the Save As dialog, change the “Save as type” to .xml. Close the file. Reopen the file and use the same steps to save the file back to a Word .doc or .docx file type. Close and reopen the file to determine if you still have an issue.

You may also try this same technique by saving the file to an .rtf format and back. This would result in you having to recheck the document formatting more closely as it may be slightly altered.

Copy and Paste Special the
Document to a New Document

This is truly the most sure-fire way of repairing a document. The downside is that you will need to reapply all of your formatting. The upside is that you won't have to re-type your document and it should be good moving forward. Open the corrupt document and select the entire document (Press CTRL + A, or “Edit>>Select All.” In Office 2007 click the Home Ribbon and click the Select button). Choose to Copy. Create a new (blank) document. Choose “Paste Special>>Unformatted Text.” Now get to reformatting. How about handing this off to your legal assistant or word processing department?

Rely on Third-Party Applications

There are many third-party applications on the market that are designed to repair your files. Search the Web for “repair word file software” (or any variation of that string).

Be prepared to face this issue eventually. Knowing it's not “just you,” and that there are options out there should keep you from totally retyping an existing file. After all, in document production, it's the typing that normally takes the most time.