Why does Word say it found unreadable content?

Because one of the XML files inside the .docx is broken or missing, or the file was cut off. Word's own Open and Repair cannot always fix these. Drop the file here: it keeps everything up to the damage and anything whole after it, and lists what it could not keep.

How is this different from the paid repair programs?

It is free, it runs in your browser so the document is never uploaded to a company's server, and it does not hold the result back until you pay. It is honest about its limits too: no tool can bring back the part of a file that was never saved or was overwritten, and this one says what is gone rather than pretending.

Can it repair an old .doc or .xls file?

Not yet - it repairs the modern ZIP-based formats. If a file with a .docx or .xlsx name is really an old .doc or .xls, it tells you so and saves it under the right name, which is often all that is wrong.

What if nothing can be recovered?

If the file is all zeros, or the part holding the document was in the section that is missing, there is nothing in it to rebuild. Look for another copy: OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox version history, the original email or download, Office's AutoRecover files, or Windows' Previous Versions on the folder.

Is my file sent anywhere?

No. It is read and rebuilt by your browser on your computer. That matters for exactly the documents people most need back - contracts, accounts, theses and reports.

Stays on your computer How this works

Repair a corrupted Word, Excel or PowerPoint file

Fix a .docx, .xlsx or .pptx that will not open - or a LibreOffice file or a .zip - and get back everything that can be saved, free and without uploading it anywhere

Drag & drop the damaged file here, or browse

.docx, .xlsx, .pptx (and macro versions), .odt, .ods, .odp or .zip · nothing is uploaded

About this file repair tool

"Word found unreadable content", "Excel cannot open the file because the file format or file extension is not valid", "PowerPoint can't read" - a modern Office file that will not open is nearly always damaged in one of a few ways. A .docx, .xlsx or .pptx is really a ZIP archive of small XML files, and the damage is usually that the file was cut off by an interrupted download, copy or sync, which loses the archive's table of contents; that a few bytes in the middle went bad; or that one of the XML files inside is broken, which Office treats as the whole file being corrupt. Sometimes it is not that kind of file at all: an old .doc renamed, a PDF, or the sign-in page a download link returned.

This tool works out which, and rebuilds the file from everything that survived. It finds each part of the archive without the table of contents, decompresses each one as far as it goes, keeps every whole paragraph, spreadsheet row and slide shape from a broken XML file - including those after a damaged stretch - and rebuilds the internal lists Office checks before it opens anything. It then reads its own result back to make sure every part is complete and valid, and tells you exactly what was wrong and what, if anything, could not be saved. It never invents content: what was lost is reported, not papered over. The file is repaired in your browser and never uploaded. It is free to use, with no account and no upload limit, and it runs entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded, and once you have used it, it keeps working offline.

What you can do

Repair Word (.docx, .docm), Excel (.xlsx, .xlsm) and PowerPoint (.pptx, .pptm) files that will not open
Repair LibreOffice and OpenOffice files (.odt, .ods, .odp) and ordinary .zip archives
Rebuild a file that was cut off by an interrupted download, copy or sync
Keep every whole paragraph, row and slide shape from a part with broken XML
Rebuild missing internal parts and remove links to parts that are gone
Find out when a file is really something else - an old .doc, a PDF, a web page or empty - and save it under the right name
Download the text that could be read, even when the file itself cannot be rebuilt
A plain report of what was wrong, what was fixed and what could not be saved

How to repair a corrupted Word, Excel or PowerPoint file

Drop the file that will not open onto the page, or click to choose it. Work on a copy if you can, and keep the original.
Read what was found. If the file is really another type, save it under the right name instead.
Download the repaired file and open it in Word, Excel or PowerPoint. If the file could not be rebuilt, download the recovered text.

Questions

Why does Word say it found unreadable content?: Because one of the XML files inside the .docx is broken or missing, or the file was cut off. Word's own Open and Repair cannot always fix these. Drop the file here: it keeps everything up to the damage and anything whole after it, and lists what it could not keep.
How is this different from the paid repair programs?: It is free, it runs in your browser so the document is never uploaded to a company's server, and it does not hold the result back until you pay. It is honest about its limits too: no tool can bring back the part of a file that was never saved or was overwritten, and this one says what is gone rather than pretending.
Can it repair an old .doc or .xls file?: Not yet - it repairs the modern ZIP-based formats. If a file with a .docx or .xlsx name is really an old .doc or .xls, it tells you so and saves it under the right name, which is often all that is wrong.
What if nothing can be recovered?: If the file is all zeros, or the part holding the document was in the section that is missing, there is nothing in it to rebuild. Look for another copy: OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox version history, the original email or download, Office's AutoRecover files, or Windows' Previous Versions on the folder.
Is my file sent anywhere?: No. It is read and rebuilt by your browser on your computer. That matters for exactly the documents people most need back - contracts, accounts, theses and reports.

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