Solution to "Word found unreadable content..." error message
In prior posts, folks have reported their Word files no longer opening, receiving the error message below:
Word found unreadable content in "(file name).docx". Do you want to recover the contents of this document? If you trust the source of this document, click Yes.
Clicking "Yes" didn't fix the issue, but I found a solution.
SOLUTION: In short, you open the file in Pages (Apple’s word processing program), and from there, you can restore a prior, non-corrupted version of the file. Here are full instructions:
- In the Finder, right-click on the file, and select Open With > Pages.
- The file will open in Pages. Pages should recognize there’s an issue with the file and give you the option of browsing prior versions of the file. If it doesn’t give you this option, go to File > Revert To > Browse All Versions.
- Now that the Browse All Versions panes are open, on the right-hand side, use the arrows to browse back to a date that was before the file became corrupted.
- Click the Restore button.
- IMPORTANT: Do NOT save the file. Simply close the file.
- Back in the Finder, you should now be able to open the file in Word.
- If Word is still giving you the same error message, follow the instructions above again, and once you’re back in the Browse All Versions pane, go back a little further in time, restore that version, and try again.
If you accidentally save the file while in Pages, it will save the file in the Pages format. To get it back into the Word format, you can follow the instructions above again and restore the file to a previous version, or you can export the file back to Word.
Good luck!