A Word document can become corrupted for several reasons that will prevent you from opening it. This behavior may be related to damage to the document or to the template on which the document is based. This behavior might include the following: Repeatedly renumbers the existing pages in the document.
What causes a Word file to become corrupt?
Causes of Document Corruption If Word crashes while you’re typing, you will lose your work since the last time you saved, but your saved file will still function. If the program happens to crash or freeze right in the middle of saving your file, however, it can corrupt the file by leaving it partially written.
How do you determine if a Word document is corrupted?
Signs that your MS Word document is corrupt A computer becomes unresponsive when you open the document. Document formatting and layout keeps on changing. Unreadable characters appearing all over the document. The document cannot load and gives you an ‘Unspecified error’ message.