Can't open word document

Question

Can't open word document

ArielA 0

After working with a word document and adding more sections over time, all of a sudden the document will not open. This is happening more and more frequently with several word documents. I save the document on iCloudDrive and work on my iPad.

Message window opens “word found unreadable content in document.docx. Do you want to recover the contents of this document? If you trust the source of this document, click Yes”. I click Yes and then a new message window opens and says “Sorry something went wrong and document.docx can’t open.”

This is a document that I created with an itinerary for a 10 day vacation that I updated with information from research, AI, concierges etc.

Now I can’t open the document. This happens on a frequent basis with various word documents that I update over time and I lose all access to information.

2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Hello ArielA. I have found an article which is similar with your issue and was answered by an author and provided instruction how to fix it. You may try this instruction below:

In Finder, right-click the file and choose Open With > Pages.
The document will launch in Pages. Pages must identify a problem with the file and allow you to explore previous versions of it. If this option isn’t available, navigate to File > Revert To > Browse All Versions.
With the Browse All Versions panes opened, on the right side, utilize the arrows to navigate back to a date prior to when the file got corrupted.
Press the Restore button.
Then the crucial step is to do not store the document. Just close the document.
Returning to the Finder, you should now be able to access the file in Word.
If Word continues to show the same error message, repeat the instructions above, and when you’re back in the Browse All Versions pane, go back a bit further in time, restore that version, and attempt it again.

If you unintentionally save the document in Pages, it will store the file in the Pages format. To return it to the Word format, you can repeat the previous steps to revert the file to an earlier version, or you can export the document back to Word.

Here's the reference: Solution to "Word found unreadable content..." error message

Best regards,

ArielA 0 Reputation points

2025-08-10T10:29:56.4933333+00:00

Unfortunately, in Pages the file wouldn’t open or restore prior version.

Answer 2

Ian-T 2,200 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hello ArielA

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A ForumI understand that you are experiencing a fairly common but frustrating combination of Word file corruption and cloud sync conflicts when saving documents to iCloud Drive from an iPad.

Here are some steps that you can kindly follow to recover your current file:

Download the file locally and repair it
- Download the document from iCloud Drive to your desktop.
- Open Word desktop app → File → Open → Browse → select the file.
- Click the arrow next to Open and choose Open and Repair. This is Microsoft’s built-in recovery feature and often works when iOS fails.
Extract text if repair fails
- Change the file extension from .docx to .zip.
- Open the ZIP and navigate to word/document.xml.
- Copy the text content (ignore XML tags) into a new Word document.
- Save as a fresh .docx.
Use OneDrive instead of iCloud
- Move the repaired file to OneDrive and open it in Word for iPad.
- OneDrive sync is more reliable with Word than iCloud, reducing corruption risk.
Enable AutoRecover and Version History
- In Word desktop: File → Options → Save → Enable AutoRecover.
- If you use OneDrive, you can restore previous versions anytime via Version History.
If still unreadable
- Use a professional repair tool like Stellar Repair for Word or DataNumen Word Repair to recover formatting and embedded objects.
Contact Microsoft Support
- Visit Contact Us and describe your issue for further support.

I hope it helps, please feel free to let me know if you need any further assistance.

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ArielA 0 Reputation points

2025-08-10T16:17:35.97+00:00

Thank you. I will try this method.

Two items that I want to bring up.

In terms of synching, my OneDrive on the windows laptop doesn’t sync with the one on the iPad and the iCloud drive on the iPad doesn’t sync with the one on the windows laptop.

A few years ago I scanned many documents as PDFs and saved them on OneDrive. Now I can’t open many of these documents. When I try to open them a screen opens and says. “Adobe Acrobat could not open the pdf because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged . To create an Adobe PDF document, go to the source application. Then print the documents to Adobe PDF”. I’m not sure what that means in the context of scanned documents saved as PDFs.

Thank you.
Ian-T 2,200 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-10T16:36:30.2433333+00:00
Hi ArielA

Thank you for your time.

About the syncing option,

1.OneDrive on Windows and iPad should sync automatically if:

You're signed in with the same Microsoft account on both devices.

The OneDrive app is installed and running on the iPad.

You have a stable internet connection.

You can check this by: Open the OneDrive app on your iPad, go to Settings > Account, and confirm you're signed in with the same account as on your laptop. Also, check that the folders you want are marked for offline access or visible in the Files app.

Or kindly check out this article by Microsoft Support: Sync the files on your computer with you mobile device

iCloud Drive sync if:

iCloud Drive syncs between Apple devices and Windows via the iCloud for Windows app.

If you don’t have iCloud for Windows installed, your iPad’s iCloud Drive won’t sync with your laptop.

You can enable it by Download and install iCloud for Windows, sign in with your Apple ID, and enable iCloud Drive.

NOTE: OneDrive and iCloud are separate services. Files saved in OneDrive won’t automatically appear in iCloud Drive unless you manually move or copy them.

And about the PDF files issue, this typically means the files are either corrupted or not fully compliant with the PDF standard.

Here are some steps you can kindly follow to help resolve the issue:

Try Alternative PDF Readers: Open the file in Edge, Chrome, or Foxit Reader. Sometimes they are more

Repair Acrobat Installation In Acrobat: Help > Repair Installation. This fixes parsing issues on your

Restore Previous Versions from OneDrive: Right-click the file in OneDrive → Version history → restore an older version (if available).

Use PDF Repair Tools: Tools like Adobe’s online repair service or third-party utilities (e.g., PDF2Go, Stellar Repair for PDF) can sometimes reconstruct damaged files.

If Files Are Truly Corrupted: If the header and structure are missing, recovery is unlikely without the original scans. In that case, you may need to rescan from the source if possible.

Note: Microsoft is providing this information as a convenience to you. The sites are not controlled by Microsoft. Microsoft cannot make any representations regarding the quality, safety, or suitability of any software or information found there. Please make sure that you completely understand the risk before retrieving any suggestions from the above link

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Can't open word document

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