subject: How To Resolve The .docx Cannot Be Opened Error [print this page] From the release of MS Word 2007, word documents are by default saved with the.docx extension. This is the new XML format for word documents. Documents created in .docx format cannot be opened with the MS Word versions lower than Word 2007. The Word documents saved with .docx extension can be damaged anytime due to multiple reasons like virus infection, abrupt system shut down, power outage, abrupt closing of MS Word, etc.
When anyone tries to open the damaged .docx document, following error message appears on your computer screen:
"The Office Open XML File abc.docx cannot be opened because there are problems with the content."
Or
"The file is corrupt and cannot be opened."
Or
"Word found unreadable content. Do you want to recover the contents of this document, click yes"
All of the aforementioned error messages show that the document that you are trying to open is either damaged or is not compatible with the version of MS Word. For example, if you try to open the .docx document with MS Word 2000 then you get the compatibility error.
Solution
Following can be the solutions for resolving the aforementioned error messages:
Open the document with MS Word 2007. If the problem is due to compatibility issues then it will be resolved automatically.
If you find it unable to open the document with MS Word 2007 then probably the document is damaged. In that case, execute the following steps to repair the damaged .docx document:
1.Click the Microsoft Office button and select the Open option. The Open dialog box appears.
2.In the Open dialog box, select the damaged .docx document.
3.Now, click the down arrow beside the Open button and select the Open and Repair option. MS Word starts repairing the document. After the repairing process is finished, the document will be opened. This way you can repair the damaged .docx document.
Sometimes, the method of repairing the damaged .docx document does not work especially when the document is highly corrupted. In that situation, the user has to bear the data loss, if the user has not backed up the document. If the user has backup of the document then he / she can protect him / her from the data loss. It may happen that full backup is not there however; even then major data loss can be prevented.
In case, backup is not there Repair word software can be a help for the user. The software effectively repairs the damaged word document. The Repair Word software scans the damaged .docx document and repairs it to recover the lost data. The software supports all versions of MS Word; therefore, it can also repair .doc documents as well.
