Office file repair tools - any recommendations?

[aich69]

Looking for recommendations for third party tools to repair corrupt MS Office files, in particular Office 2007. I am aware of the ability to repair from within Office so don't need help with that but so often this just doesn't work and the temptation is to try something off the net.
Wondering if anyone has had any success with any third party tools that they can happily recommend?
<rant>As is usually the case, when a user can't fix a file from within Office themselves I'm supposed to come to the rescue with a army of 'paid for' repair programs that I have bought myself just in case they run in to trouble. </rant>

Thank you

I used to have a handle on life... but it broke. Cpt. Red Bull

 

[MakeItSo]

What kind of corruption are we talking about here?
I have always made good experiences with using OpenOffice for that.
When a file could not be opened by Word any more, I opened and saved it with OpenOffice once and my uncle's name was Bob.

Try that.

“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” (Kofi Annan)
Oppose SOPA, PIPA, ACTA; measures to curb freedom of information under whatever name whatsoever.

 

[aich69]

Ah ok, that's something I didn't think of...I will give it a go.

Generally it's Excel files that are getting corrupted, some of our guys work with some pretty complex and large workbooks that are quite often being used across the network so impatience with shutting down etc can quite often cause problems. I'm guessing that you open a Word doc in OpenOffice could also work for spreadsheets?

Appreciate the reply.

I used to have a handle on life... but it broke. Cpt. Red Bull

 

[MakeItSo]

Depends on the complexity of that workbook.
When it comes to compatibility of Excel vs. OO calc... well... there isn't much compatibility. :-(
The OO workaround works very well for many Word documents but spreadsheets? "Complex" ones at that?

I'd rather say "stuff it", and use the last shadow volume copy of that file.
(in explorer: right click the file => properties => Previous versions, pick the last known good date)


“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” (Kofi Annan)
Oppose SOPA, PIPA, ACTA; measures to curb freedom of information under whatever name whatsoever.

 

[macropod]

Corrupt Word documents can often be 'repaired' by inserting a new, empty, paragraph at the very end, copying everything except that new paragraph to a new document based on the same template, closing the old document and saving the new one over it.

Similarly, corrupt Word tables can often be 'repaired' by converting the tables to text and back again or by saving the document in RTF format, closing the document then re-opening it and re-saving in the doc(x) format.

These two approaches cover most corruption issues, without the need for other software.

Cheers
Paul Edstein
[MS MVP - Word]

 

[Larena]

If, as you say, people are getting impatient when saving, they may be killing processes or shutting down resulting in only part of the file being saved. If this is the case, it may be not be possible to repair them.

 

[byundt]

When an Office app saves a file, it writes the file with a random filename. If the file writing is successfully completed, the random filename is changed to the actual filename and the original file location is deallocated.

If people are getting impatient and killing processes or shutting down, you might have a partial file with a random name--but the original file will still be intact. In other words, you might lose your edits but not the file.

Unless the hard drive is very full, the deallocated blocks aren't reused right away. This is by design. Because the original file is not overwritten, it is possible to recover that information. File "undelete" software takes advantage of this fact to recover files.

Files are written to logical blocks of hard drive, so if one or more of those blocks are overwritten by other files (or the file allocation table is damaged and loses track of those blocks) then that particular Office file won't open correctly. I think this is a more likely cause of problems than impatient users killing processes.

 

[aich69]

It is Excel workbooks I'm referring to here and yes, I think it is generally a case of users becoming impatient and forcing Excel to close.

I'd rather say "stuff it", and use the last shadow volume copy of that file.
(in explorer: right click the file => properties => Previous versions, pick the last known good date)

Quite right and possibly the best option without third party tools but when this doesn't do what the user wants they want me to supply some kind of 'magic' repair software.
9 times out of 10 the users are working remotely over VPN accessing large files from the netwrok which is also where the problem occurs.

Taking that I know how to get back old file versions etc myself I'm really after something 'third party' that anyone knows to be relatively successful...purely to pass the information on to the end user. I'm not one for moaning about stuff when I know I'm the one that has caused the issue but end users are a different story

Appreciate all the replies so far.

I used to have a handle on life... but it broke. Cpt. Red Bull

 

[macropod]

If someone's so impatient as to kill an Excel session while it's saving a file, the likely result is an unrecoverable corrupted file. I have no pity for the miscreant; only for whoever else's work they compromise.

Cheers
Paul Edstein
[MS MVP - Word]

 

[MakeItSo]

It is one thing to make life as easy and safe as possible for the users but it is another to be expected to constantly remedying their bullshit.
Such behaviour is simply not to be condoned let alone "hidden" by workarounds.

9 times out of 10 the users are working remotely over VPN accessing large files from the netwrok

Proposal: Rather than working directly on the network via VPN, make these users RDP to a Terminal Server session with their own profile on a TS or give separate Desktops to log on to for those with the heaviest traffic.
This way they can work remotely while still experiencing the joy of internal network performance when opening large files.

Cheers,
MakeItSo

“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” (Kofi Annan)
Oppose SOPA, PIPA, ACTA; measures to curb freedom of information under whatever name whatsoever.

 

[aich69]

Rather than working directly on the network via VPN, make these users RDP to a Terminal Server session with their own profile

Ah if only...I am merely [tongue firmly in cheak when I say 'merely'] a desktop engineer who has no control over the way user connect to the rather large Tele Comms company that I contract for. If they came close to listening to any suggestions I have they'd at least have a usuable internal wireless network by now if nothing else

Love this -

It is one thing to make life as easy and safe as possible for the users but it is another to be expected to constantly remedying their bullshit

- I will be using that on my last day at work

If someone's so impatient as to kill an Excel session while it's saving a file, the likely result is an unrecoverable corrupted file. I have no pity for the miscreant; only for whoever else's work they compromise

...and the likes of us desktop support guys who then have to try and 'fix it' for them only to be chastised for not having the correct third party tool to do the job.

I used to have a handle on life... but it broke. Cpt. Red Bull

 

[MakeItSo]

Oh my, poor lad!


OK, let's talk about third party solutions then:
Seems to me a document management system would be ideal, where the user does a check-out of the file s/he wants to edit and checks it back in once he's done. Then there will always be all good versions directly at hand and they can even do a simple rollback if they happened to -oops! - have accidentally deleted the wrong line.
Hell, I think even SourceSafe would do a fairly good job at this!

“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” (Kofi Annan)
Oppose SOPA, PIPA, ACTA; measures to curb freedom of information under whatever name whatsoever.

 

[MakeItSo]

I almost overlooke this gem here:

...rather large Tele Comms company... [...] [would] at least have a usuable internal wireless network by now

I bet they do manufacture wireless routers though, right?

Oh, the irony!


“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” (Kofi Annan)
Oppose SOPA, PIPA, ACTA; measures to curb freedom of information under whatever name whatsoever.