Word Found Unreadable Content

The full message reads: "Word found unreadable content in [file name]. Do you want to recover the contents of this document? If you trust the source of this document, click Yes."

A .docx file is a ZIP archive that holds a set of XML files: the main text, styles, headers and footers, images, and a list that ties them together. Word shows this message when one of those pieces is missing, cut short, or written in a way Word won't accept.

Yes or No

• Yes asks Word to rebuild the document from what it can read. It often works for light damage. What Word couldn't read is left out, so check images, tables, lists and the end of the document afterward.
• No closes the message without opening the file. Nothing is deleted, and you can try other fixes.

Before you click either, copy the original file somewhere safe. Every fix works best on an untouched original, and Word's recovery can't be undone once you save over it.

The damage almost always happens while the file is written or moved, not while it sits on your disk. The common causes:

• A save, copy or download that stopped early. A closed laptop, a full disk, a dropped connection or a removed USB drive leaves the file cut short. The end of a ZIP archive holds its index, so a cut file loses its index first.
• A sync conflict. Two copies edited at once in a cloud folder, or a sync that ran while Word was still saving, can leave a mix of two versions.
• A file written by another program. Report generators, PDF converters, translation tools, scripts and AI assistants all write .docx files with their own code. A small slip, such as an unescaped & or a missing part, is enough for Word to refuse the file.
• An email attachment that didn't decode. If the file came by email, ask the sender to send it again or share it another way.

If every document you open shows this message, the files are probably fine and the problem is Word itself. See the troubleshooting section below.

Try these in order on a copy of the file. Menu names can differ a little between Word versions.

Open and Repair

1. In Word, select File, then Open, and browse to the document.
2. Click the document once to select it. Don't double-click.
3. Select the arrow on the Open button, then select Open and Repair.
4. If the document opens, save it under a new name with File, then Save As.

Recover Text from Any File

This gets the words back when nothing else works. Formatting, pictures, fields and drawings are lost; headers, footers, footnotes and endnotes come back as plain text.

1. In Word, select File, then Open.
2. In the file type box, select Recover Text from Any File(*.*).
3. Select the document, then select Open.
4. Delete the stray characters Word leaves at the start and end of the text, then save it as a new Word document.

Insert the text into a new document

1. Create a new blank document.
2. On the Insert tab, select Insert Object, then Text From File.
3. Select the damaged document, then select Insert.

You may need to redo some formatting in the last section.

If it doesn't work

• Open and Repair gives the same message: the damage is in the file's structure. Use the repair tool at the top of this page, then open the repaired copy.
• The recovered text is full of symbols: that is the file's internal code. Keep the readable parts and delete the rest.

Word for Mac shows the same message and offers the same Yes and No choices. Click Yes first, on a copy of the file.

If Word for Mac can't recover it:

1. Drop the file into the repair tool at the top of this page. It runs in your browser, and the file stays on your Mac.
2. Open the repaired copy in Word.

You can also try opening the original in Pages or another word processor. They read .docx files with their own code and sometimes accept a file Word rejects. If one of them opens it, save a fresh copy as a Word document.

The tool above opens the .docx the way Word does, part by part, and fixes the problems that make Word give up:

• It rebuilds a missing or broken file index, and keeps everything up to the point where a cut file ends.
• It mends XML: it closes tags left open, escapes stray & characters, removes characters XML forbids and drops repeated attributes.
• It rebuilds the content type list and the links between parts, and removes links to parts that are gone. A missing image is replaced with a blank so the rest of the document opens.

The diagnosis lists every problem with the part it was in, for example word/document.xml, and says whether it was fixed and whether any content was lost.

When it says "No damage found"

The file's structure and XML are sound. Word can still refuse a file whose XML is valid but breaks one of Word's own rules, such as elements in the wrong order. Use Open and Repair or Recover Text from Any File in that case. If the tool shows the real file type is something else, such as a PDF or a plain text file with a .docx name, rename it and open it with the right app.