Windows 10 Corrupt file

[John9210]

Word 16 suddenly would not open a document I've been working on for a while. I get the error that it needs to be recovered. After I recovered it the file contents were gibberish. My question is how do word documents become corrupt? Can this be prevented?

 

[livix07]

Did you save the file before closing Word when you last modified the document?

 

[John9210]

Yes. You can't close word without a save dialog if you have made changes.

 

[livix07]

Yes. You can't close word without a save dialog if you have made changes.

That's true but it can happen that people forget to close the application and turn off their computer.
Have you run sfc /scannow to check if the file system is corrupt?
You can also create a free Office account online and try to open that file online, see here Office 365 Login | Microsoft Office

 

[John9210]

Thanks, I'll give it a try.