5 Common Reasons for Corruption of Word Documents

Whether you’re a student, a writer, or any other modern day professional, you have at one point required word documents. It is therefore disheartening to learn that word documents are in constant danger of corruption or complete loss. Below, we discuss some of the common situations that would lead to this.

Imagine working on a 200-page work report for several weeks. On the day you’re supposed to submit it, you try to open it for last-minute additions and to your surprise, an error message pops up saying that the document is corrupted. This is not a fictional problem, and it happens quite often, especially with large word documents. Let us examine some of the possible circumstances that could have led to this.

1. System Crashes

System crashes always come unannounced and mostly occur when a task is being processed. After restarting the system, you will often find some files missing, especially those that were being processed at the time of the crash. It is important to always close programs which are not currently in use to avoid this.

2. Unsaved Work

After hours of working, you might forget to save your document and hurriedly shut down the system due to exhaustion. You are then shocked the next time you try to locate the document and find it corrupted, missing some data or you can’t find it at all. You should always save before closing word documents if you have made any changes, however insignificant they might be.

3. System Updates

Windows 10 has been known to notoriously force system updates. These updates often occur after restarting the system but there have been reports of system updates while the users were using Microsoft Word. After the update, the word document the person was working on is often missing or corrupted. It is advisable to disable Windows’ automatic and scheduled updates and manually update it yourself whenever you see fit.

4. Virus Attacks

Viruses are malicious software that ‘attach themselves’ to your files or folders and modify them to corrupt or delete them. Some are so vicious that they cause a system malfunction. When word documents are attacked, they are corrupted and will not open. You should always have an up-to-date antivirus software to safeguard your data.

5. Hardware Failure

There are many hardware-related problems that could lead to corruption of word documents. For example, using processor-hungry software on outdated hardware is one risky practice. Your hard disk could also be damaged and corrupt the saved files. It is therefore vital to check for hardware compatibility when installing a new piece of software onto your computer. Additionally, also ensure your computer has a stable power supply given that unstable power is one of the leading causes of hard disk failure. These are just a few of the many causes of word document corruption. However, there is no need to worry if you find that a word document is already corrupt. With a data recovery tool like DataNumen Word Repair, you can repair and recover the document. It is quite easy to use and has very high success rates.