In Depth: 9 ways to recover a corrupt Microsoft Office file
It's a nightmare, the frightening scenario that scares every Microsoft Office owner: one of your most important Word, Excel or PowerPoint files has somehow been corrupted. And now it either won't open at all, or you're able to view some of the content - but the rest seems to have disappeared.
The sight of hours, days, maybe weeks of work apparently gone forever is enough to ruin anyone's day, but don't give up just yet. The situation may not be quite as bad as it seems.
Office itself can fix some broken files; there are free plenty of tools around that can achieve even better results; and even if they fail, applying a few simple, straightforward manual tricks could be enough to recover your lost work, and in just a few minutes.
Make a copy of the faulty document before you do anything else: our techniques aren't destructive, but it's best to be safe. And then you're ready to begin. Here's what you need to know.
1. Volume Shadow Copy
If you're using Windows 7, or the Business, Enterprise or Ultimate edition of Windows Vista then the built-in shadow copy centre may have an older and uncorrupted version of your file.
To find out, launch Explorer, right-click the folder that contained the document and select Properties. If you see a Previous Versions tab then click that. And if all is well then you'll see a list of entries for the folder, going back days, or maybe weeks.
SHADOW: Windows may have made a backup copy of your document. How thoughtful
Double-click one with a date when you know the document was readable, and try opening this older version. If it works, save it with a new name, then repeat the process with later folder entries until you reach the point where the file became corrupted.
This will get you a baseline version of the file, but you may still have lost plenty of work: if so, don't stop here. Keep trying the following steps and you may be able to recover the latest copy of the file, too.
2. Undelete
Depending on your Office setup and the history of this document, you may have backup, autorecover or other temporary copies of the file. If this is a Word document, for instance, try searching for *.WBK or *.ASD files of the right size and date, opening likely matches in Word to see what turns up (more on that topic at the Microsoft site).
In addition, Office apps will generally create a hidden temporary file with a copy of your document, as you work on it, so locating this file can be useful. The copy is deleted when you close your Office application, though, so you'll need an undelete tool. Grab a copy of Recuva (www.piriform.com/recuva) if you don't have one already.
RECUVA: Undelete tools like Recuva may help you find old Office temporary files
Now ask the program to search the folder where your document is stored for all files (or *.TMP files if you can filter by extension).
If a deleted file of around the right date and size is available, then recover it, ideally to a different drive (a USB flash drive will be fine). Rename the TMP extension to match the real document format, then try opening it to see what you've recovered.
3. Test your assumptions
If Office tells you that a file is corrupt and can't be opened then you'll probably believe it - but there could be other explanations. Your Office app may be having some fundamental problems of its own, for instance.
So if you have a problem opening one document, then confirm the results by opening others, or creating a new document, saving and reopening that.
If the application works fine with other files then you've shown that the original document is most likely at fault.
REINSTALL: If the problem is with Office itself then a repair installation may fix the problem
But if there are problems elsewhere, as well, then perhaps the issue is with Office. You might try repairing the current installation (in Windows 7, go to Control Panel, Uninstall a Program, choose Office, click Change and select the Repair option), or reinstalling the entire package. Now try opening the document again, and you may well have better luck.
4. Open and Repair
Office can fix some corrupt documents on its own. And this will often happen automatically. You'll notice a longer pause than usual while Office is working on the file, then your document will either open as normal, or you'll see an error message describing the problem.
If Office doesn't try this itself, though, you can manually ask that it fix a specific document. Just go to open a file as normal, choose the document in question, then click the arrow to the right of the Open button and select Open and Repair.
If the corruption is relatively minor then this may be enough to restore your work. But don't expect too much: the Open and Repair option doesn't seem particularly smart, and in our tests, damaging just a byte or two in keys areas of a document would prevent it from opening at all.
REPAIR: Office's own Open and Repair function is enough to repair some documents
Should you still be having problems, there's a second, very much bare-bones Word option.
Go to open a file again, choose your damaged document, and select "Recover Text from Any File" in the "Files of Type" box. This should be able to recover any raw text from the file, but images and raw formatting will be lost .
Save this version anyway - it may be the best you'll get - but there are techniques that may be able to achieve more complete results.
5. Replace your template
While we've ruled out major Office-wide problems as the cause of your document difficulties, there could be more minor issues. Word could be affected by a faulty template, maybe; a dubious addon; possibly even a printer issue.
TEMPLATE: A change of template could make a Word document viewable again
You could address each of these points individually. Or you might opt to tackle several of them in one go, for example running Word in Safe Mode (a bare-bones launch that disables all installed add-ons, amongst other things). Read Microsoft's official guide to troubleshooting damaged documents in Word 2007 and 2010 to help you decide.
6. Office Visualisation Tool
Microsoft's Office Visualisation Tool (OffVis for short) is a highly technical utility which allows security researchers to take a close look at the structure of DOC, XLS or PPT files.
It also includes a useful Repair option, though, so if your document is saved in the older binary formats (not the later DOCX, XLSX or PPTX) then Offvis may allow you to recover at least something from the file.
VISUALISE: If looks horribly technical, but actually Microsoft Offvis includes a very quick and easy Office file repair feature
The program is extremely easy to use.
Just click File > Open, and choose your broken document. You'll see its raw contents displayed in the left hand side.
Click Tools > Repair and Defragment. There's no dialog box, no progress bar, no sign that anything has happened at all, but OffVis is busy working in the background.
Then click File > Save Data File As (not "Save Data File" as you don't want to overwrite the original file), save the document with a new name, and try opening it. While the results aren't perfect (and in theory they be worse than the original document), we found OffVis was able to recover files where Open and Repair failed miserably, so it's definitely worth a try.
7. Alternative applications
Opening Office documents is a complicated business. And in software development terms, there are many possible ways to get the job done.
So just because, say, Word displays an error message when you open a particular file, doesn't mean other apps that can read that format will behave in the same way. They may be able to cope with whatever the problem is, and give you access to at least some of your work.
Windows WordPad can open .DOC files in Vista and XP, for instance. In Windows 7 it only appears to support the .DOCX format (and then only partially), but choose a .DOC file anyway and you may at least be able to view any text it contains.
WORDPAD: WordPad can open .DOC and some .DOCX files
For wider and more reliable opening of Office files (all formats) you could try installing a copy of OpenOffice. Many people report that this provides reliable access to damaged files.
And any other programs that can read your document format might be useful. AbiWord is a powerful little editor that can read DOC and DOCX files, for instance - let it try importing your broken document and see what happens.
8. Recovery tools
As you might expect, there are a whole host of programs designed to bring back corrupt Office files from the dead. Most of the best are commercial, some very expensive, but there are also plenty of freebies and good value deals available.
It may not have been updated in a long time, for example, but Repair My Word can still repair many damaged .DOC files.
S2 Services has free tools to recover the text from DOCX, XLSX and many other file types, as well as general recovery advice.
FREE TOOLS: S2 Services provide free tools to recover content from DOCX and XLSX files
And Cimaware's commercial range of products (there are separate tools for Access, Excel, Word and Outlook) was very effective in our tests, and supports just about every Office version and file type. Prices start at £69 for WordFix, and that's a special offer, but there is a free trial version that will display a partial preview of the recovered file, so you're able to check the program's abilities before you buy.
9. DIY
If nothing else can recover your DOCX, PPTX or XLSX document, then you can always take a closer look for yourself.
These formats are actually ZIP files, so a good place to start is to rename a copy of the document to have a ZIP extension, then use your archiving tool to extract its contents.
If this doesn't work then you may have discovered the core problem: your document is so damaged that it's not recognisable as ZIP file any more. Try specialist repair tools like Object Fix Zip or DiskInternals ZIP Repair to see if they can help, and anything they can do may allow Office to properly open the file.
ZIP: DOCX documents are actually ZIP files, and may be viewable in archiving tools like 7-Zip
If you can at least unzip the file, though, then you'll unpack XML files that describe the document. In the case of a Word .DOCX file, for instance, browsing to the Word folder will display a Document.xml file which should contain the raw document text, as well as other files covering headers, footers, footnotes, endnotes and more.
Double-clicking these won't give you the full formatting, of course, but at least you'll have the core body text, with images in the Media folder. And if nothing else has managed to recover even that much then then this is still very good news, enough to save you a great deal of time and hassle.
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New Oxford English Dictionary may be online only
The venerable institution that is the 126-year-old Oxford English Dictionary may no longer be made available in print, with the OED's publishers seriously considering an online-only release for the forthcoming third edition.The OED3 will be the first new edition since 1989 and could well be made available in its entirety online according to the AP.
The current print version of the OED weighs over 130 pounds, so it's easy to see why smartphone-toting academics might well be more inclined to opt for a subscription to the online-only version in the future.
Print market is disappearing
Nigel Portwood, Chief Exec of Oxford University Press says that online revenue is an increasingly important aspect of the business, adding that the publisher is considering dropping print versions of the new OED completely.
Portwood told The Sunday Times: "The print dictionary market is just disappearing. It is falling away by tens of percent a year."
The online version of the OED, while still costing £205 + VAT for individuals to subscribe to gets around two million hits per year from subscribers right now.
New online version in December
Oxford University Press has a team of 80 lexographers working on OED3, which has already been in development for over a decade. No word as yet on when it might be released.
A new online version of the OED is planned for launch in December, which will include a historical thesaurus to improve the ease of cross-referencing.
"At present we are experiencing increasing demand for the online product," said a statement from Oxford University Press.
"However, a print version will certainly be considered if there is sufficient demand at the time of publication."
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Intel buys Infineon's mobile chip division
Chip giant Intel has purchased the wireless chip division of Germany's Infineon for £900 million.Infineon is perhaps best known to consumers as the company that makes the chips used by Apple in its iPhones.
The deal follows Intel's £4.9 billion purchase of McAfee earlier this month, the US security software company.
Intel aims for smartphones
Both deals are part and parcel of Intel moving its business away from its traditional core of producing CPUs for personal computers, into newer growth markets such as security and mobile/wireless.
Intel downgraded its sales outlook last week, noting that consumer demand for computers was slowing in what it sees to be a slower-than-expected recovery for the worldwide PC market.
The company reduced its expected third-quarter revenues to $11bn, down from an estimated $11.6bn forecast only six weeks ago.
Intel's latest purchase of Infineon's wireless unit will allow the company to boost its position in the fast-growing smartphone market.
The mobile unit will remain as a standalone business, according to statements issued by both Infineon and Intel.
"Infineon would make Intel an instant heavyweight (in the mobile space) and buy them three, four years in R&D," IDC analyst Flint Pulskamp told Reuters.
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Chrome 7 speed boosted by graphics chips
Google has confirmed plans to use GPU acceleration to give the latest version of its Chrome browser a serious bump-up in speed.The news follows similar plans expected to be announced from the Microsoft and Mozilla camps in the coming weeks, with Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) and Firefox 4 both looking set to add GPU acceleration.
Overhauling the graphics system
"There's been a lot of work going on to overhaul Chromium's graphics system" and the browser will "begin to take advantage of the GPU to speed up its entire drawing model, including many common 2D operations such as compositing and image scaling," a Google rep informed conceivablytech.com.
As such, Chrome 7 will appear to be far zippier than its predecessors, particularly on graphics-heavy sites.
Google plans to offload an increasing amount of the graphics' rendering work onto the GPU to "achieve impressive speedups", detailing how the tech works on a document on Google's Chromium website.
Mozilla's Firefox 4 beta is currently available for those that want to check it out, while Microsoft is currently readying itself for the launch of Internet Explorer 9 on 15 September.
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In Depth: 10 cool firms Google Ventures has backed
Venture capitalists provide cash, guidance and resources to help new businesses thrive - businesses like Google, which might still be stuck in a garage if it weren't for VCs' early investments. Now the search giant wants to return the favour, and its Google Ventures arm aims to find the most exciting new businesses and help them to thrive - not just by throwing money at them, but by sharing resources too. Here are ten firms that Google's backing to make them bigger.
1. Adimab
"The first fully integrated, yeast-based antibody discovery platform" might not sound too exciting, but Adimab is doing something extraordinary: it's built a kind of synthetic immune system that can help pharmaceutical companies develop the antibody drugs of the future.
2. Corduro
Don't bother checking out the Corduro website: it's essentially a placeholder, with precious little information. You might be better off checking out the iPhone/iPad payment application Square, because we suspect Google's investment in Corduro is for something similar: the firm offers a mobile payment platform for small businesses, and of course Google has a mobile platform in Android.
3. English Central
Bringing English Central into the YouTube family makes a lot of sense. The site offers an unusual take on language learning, enabling students to choose popular English language video clips rather than traditional, deathly dull educational footage. English Central then uses speech recognition to analyse the students' speech and provide feedback.
4. iPierian
Another medical investment, iPierian focuses on fighting diseases for which there are poor medical models and limited available treatments such as Parkinson's disease, spinal muscular atrophy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Its technology effectively reprogrammes human adult cells to behave like stem cells, deftly side-stepping the controversy over the use of human embryos' cells in medical research.
5. Miso
The Miso service is a kind of Foursquare for TV, enabling you to share what you're watching with others, discover new things to watch and earn points to unlock "fun, virtual badges like Princess, Food Mobster and Moustache Patrol." Miso was already available in Web-based, iPhone and iPad flavours, an Android version has just launched and we'd expect to see it on Google TV when that ships.
6. Pixazza
Pixazza turns pictures into sales opportunities and has been dubbed "AdSense for images", so it's not surprising that Google's taken an interest. Celeb snaps become "get the look!" sales opportunities; photos of beautiful beaches sprout adverts for boat trips; and time-lapse photos become equipment lists with shopping links.
PIXAZZA: If you've ever wished web pages had more things popping up in front of them, has Pixazza got the product for you!
7. Recorded Future
Remember the pre-cogs in Minority Report? Recorded Future is a bit like that, but without floating any bald people in tanks. The world's first "temporal analytics engine" analyses the past to predict the future, and immediate applications include financial trading, competitor analysis and national security. When Eric Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal that "I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next" we suspect that Recorded Future was part of what he had in mind.
8. SCVNGR
Life, the saying goes, is a game. SCVNGR took that literally and created a gaming platform where the real world is the game world. More than 550 organisations in 20 different countries have built applications using SCVNGR, encouraging users to carry out specific tasks - strike a pose, scan a code or just check in, Foursquare style - in order to earn points. Think of it as a high-tech treasure hunt and you've got the basic idea, but this is a system that scales: games can be as small as you like or encompass entire cities with thousands of simultaneous players.
SCVNGR: This app turns the real world into a gaming platform, with locations setting challenges that you can take to earn points
9. Silver Spring Networks
Silver Spring creates hardware, software and services for Smart Grid systems, a more efficient way to deliver electricity. As the US department of energy notes, "if the grid were just 5 per cent more efficient, the energy savings would equate to permanently eliminating the fuel and greenhouse gas emissions from 53 million cars". Smart Grid technology also encompasses home automation, with appliances monitoring energy use and adjusting their behaviour to keep your utility bills low.
10. V-Vehicle
This is perhaps the most intriguing investment of all: V-Vehicle is a new car company that promises to "make green affordable for the masses". What kind of cars will it make? Nobody knows for sure, although reports suggest they'll have plastic, customisable bodies rather than traditional steel skins. What technologies will its vehicles adopt? Nobody's saying. The presence of former Mazda designer Tom Motano - the man behind the RX-7 and the MX-5 - bodes well, as does the presence of other heavyweight investors including famous VC firm Kleiner Perkins and former Texas oil boss T. Boone Pickens.
V-VEHICLE: So far the only pictures of the V-Vehicle car are teaser shots in video clips. The firm promises affordable green motoring for the masses
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Google planning pay-per-view movie service
Google is planning on developing a paid-for on-demand movie service via YouTube by the end of the year, according to latest reports.The FT reports that Google is pitching the business plan to all the major Tinseltown studios, citing anonymous sources familiar with the deals.
Google takes on Apple
The announcement comes hot on the heels of last week's news that Google is planning on boosting the free movies-on-demand offering on YouTube.
The service will go head-to-head with offerings from the likes of Lovefilm in the UK and Netflix and Hulu in the US.
Additionally, it is rumoured that Apple is preparing to make an announcement about its own plans in the movie streaming market.
Google has a number of added advantages that it can offer Hollywood studios, not least the fact that it is the most popular search engine in the world, plus the company owns YouTube, the world's most popular video streaming service.
Google goes to the movies
According to the FT's sources, Google hopes to launch its new movies-on-demand service later this year, rolling it out to other countries over time.
"Google and YouTube are a global phenomenon with a hell of a lot of eyeballs – more than any cable or satellite service," said one source. "They've talked about how many people they could steer to this . . . it's a huge number."
Google has been beta testing a film rental service since January 2010.
It is said that the company plans to plan to charge US movie fans around $5 to stream newer titles, which would be made available at the same time as the DVD release or the download option on stores such as Amazon.com and Apple's iTunes.
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AMD kills the ATI brand - but will it work?
AMD has decided it's time to put ATI firmly in the bin. The chip manufacturer bought graphics giant ATI back in 2006 and has traded off the name ever since. However, the Phenom-maker has now decided that it's time for AMD to take over completely and the Radeon graphics brand will now be proceeded by the AMD name, though the red colour will be retained.
In a conference call with TechRadar, John Volkmann, vice president of Strategic Communications at AMD said that "we've looked very hard at is the role of the ATI brand. We [previously] chose not to change for very good reasons.
"[Now] do we have permission to do that? Our partners and our customers also have a role to play."
AMD-less logo
But as well as a Radeon logo featuring the AMD logo, there is also a plain logo that just features the words Radeon Graphics.
"That's for anyone in our system who doesn't want to take the hard cut over the AMD brand" explains Volkmann.
"Some [partners] say they would prefer a transitional strategy, a two step process. We fully expect to transfer everybody to the [AMD Radeon] logos," continues Volkmann.
But the AMD slide deck shows a brand treatment alongside an Intel Core logo – no AMD branding is present aside from the word Radeon – surely a strange move?
Volkmann was bullish when talking about the move. "When it comes to our brands the ATI and Radeon brands are equally strong.
"Secondly we learnt that the combination of AMD and Radeon is stronger than ATI and Radeon," he continued.
The change will happen with all new products – older cards will still have the ATI branding. AMD carried out research in seven territories (including the UK) when deciding about the brand.
Volkmann said the findings gave AMD "permission to proceed."
"In our minds the timing couldn't be better," he said. "Our AMD graphics business [is] executing well, culminating in AMD recently taking overall leadership in discrete graphics market share.
Partner view
But what about the partners? "We view the decision by AMD to consolidate under one brand as a good move," says Adrian Thompson, responsible for international marketing at Sapphire Technology. "It will ultimately lead to broader recognition of AMD as a CPU and GPU powerhouse."
Eddie Memon, senior VP of marketing at XFX says that they did have some reservation about the move. "AMD then shared with us the extensive market research that supports this initiative and we now view the transition as an important step in establishing an even stronger worldwide brand."
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LG LEX8 'thinnest Full LED television' to appear at IFA
LG has announced that it will show off the new LEX8 television at IFA, with what it terms 'NANO Lighting Technology'. LG believes that the LEX8's tech will 'redefine the meaning of clarity' but they'll have to clear up what they mean (sorry) in Berlin.
"The LEX8 NANO FULL LED TV pushes the boundaries of viewing pleasure with its NANO Lighting Technology, which produces LG's brightest, clearest and smoothest picture yet," said LG's release.
Thin film
"An extremely thin film printed with minuscule dots positioned in front of a full array of LEDs disperses light more evenly and effectively across the screen, creating pictures that are clearer, enticingly smoother and more refined.
"What's more, an Anti-Reflection Panel on the LEX8 screen minimizes reflection from an external light source – including sunlight -- ensuring the picture always stays crystal clear."
LG's release goes on to explain that the LEX8 tech should improve localised dimming in both 2D and 3D with its 'Micro Pixel Control' and this should make a clear difference when paired with the company's TruMotion 400Hz.
New standards
"In creating our first television using nano technology, LG is continuing to set new standards in TV technology and demonstrating once again that we're pushing the envelope of home entertainment," said Simon Kang, President and CEO of LG Home Entertainment Company.
"Just as difficult as it is to watch standard TV after experiencing high definition, people will resist going back to regular LED LCD TVs after viewing the LEX8."
The upshot of all of this tech is a televisions with a width of 88mm and a 1.25 cm bezel, leading to LG describing it as ' indisputably the slimmest and narrowest of any FULL LED TV in the world".
Need more, LG insists that this will be its finest 3D capable TV because: "By ensuring a uniform distribution of light from the LED backlight panels, the LEX8 illuminates the screen more effectively, for 3D pictures of unprecedented clarity and brightness."
We will of course be looking closely at the television at IFA - which is shaping up to be an exciting show indeed.
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