cannot open word document created on Mac

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I cannot open word document created on Mac - Error states problems with the contents. I was able to recover earlier versions but all saved versions on a particular day are locked. I have tried opening as text or recover text with no luck. Any ideas??
 
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Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
Hard to say you provide no details of Mac, operating system, version of Word the document created in or the version of Word on your Mac. Look at the document. Is it .doc or .docx format?
 
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Document was originally made on Word-Office 2011 in a MacPro laptop. I have worked for 3 months or so with edits using Lion and got a new IMAC with Yosemite and it was working ok. The document I cannot open was edited on April 9 and the references were added with EndNote7. When I was saving the document to end the day, I changed the title and suddenly Mac crashed (system indicated EndNote crashed). I could not find the document after that. I finally was able to use Disk Drill to recover documents and scan for hidden files/partitions. I found "Hidden locked files and recovered them but cannot open the version edited on April 9 (I saved the file 8-10 times in 4 hrs of work).
 
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chas_m

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Sounds like Endnote crashed and corrupted the document in the process. What you'll likely need is some kind of program that can try to open the document anyway so you can copy and paste what text is there and reconstruct the file. Ah, for a copy of CanOpener ...
 

chscag

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2017 27" iMac, 10.5" iPad Pro, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Mini, Numerous iPods, Monterey
Member chas_m is likely correct. We always tell folks who use Mac Office Word to make sure they select "Always make a backup" from the Office preferences. Recovering damaged or lost Word documents is almost impossible with the way Office stores the recovery data. The best you can do now is try to glean what you can from the file using TextEdit.
 
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I don't know why nobody has yet come up with a secure, easy to use system for managing references. After decades of publishing papers and messing with reference managers I have returned to manually copying and pasting references, and waiting until the last draft before laboriously numbering citations in the text. Saves a lot of grief in the end.
 

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