Correcting microsoft word document encoding

File Conversion with Encoding Change. Save Word Document in Plain Text. Convert File Option in Mac. Change Encoding in Mac. About Editorial Staff Editorial Staff at WebNots are team members who love to build websites and share the learning with webmasters community. Aug 3, How to Zip and Unzip Files in Android? Oct 31, Jan 27, March 23, at PM. Thank you. Leave a Reply Your email is safe with us. Type and press Enter to search. Communities Get Support. Sign in Sign in Sign in corporate.

Browse Search. Ask a question. User profile for user: bneider bneider. More Less. Reply I have this question too 28 I have this question too Me too 28 Me too. Helpful answers Drop Down menu. View answer in context. Loading page content. The following article has some helpful information about this type of issue under the section titled, "If the file cannot be opened in Word for Mac" that you may find useful: Troubleshooting damaged documents in Word for Mac Best Regards.

To avoid problems with encoding and decoding text files, you can save files with Unicode encoding. Unicode accommodates most characters sets across all the languages that are commonly used among computer users today. Because Word is based on Unicode, Word automatically saves files encoded as Unicode. You can open and read Unicode-encoded files on your English-language computer system regardless of the language of the text.

Likewise, when you use your English-language system to save files encoded as Unicode, the file can include characters not found in Western European alphabets, such as Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, or Japanese characters. If, when you open a file, text appears garbled or as question marks or boxes, Word may not have accurately detected the encoding standard of text in the file.

You can specify the encoding standard that you can use to display decode the text. Scroll to the General section, and then select the Confirm file format conversion on open check box. Note: When this check box is selected, Word displays the Convert File dialog box every time you open a file in a format other than a Word format Word formats include. If you frequently work with such files but rarely want to choose an encoding standard, remember to switch this option off to prevent having this dialog box open unnecessarily.

In the File Conversion dialog box, select Other encoding , and then select the encoding standard that you want from the list. You can preview the text in the Preview area to check whether all the text is readable in the encoding standard that you selected. If almost all the text looks the same for example, all boxes or all dots , the font required for displaying the characters may not be installed.

If the font that you need is not available, you can install additional fonts. In the list of programs, click the listing for Microsoft Office or Microsoft Word, depending on whether you installed Word as part of Office or as an individual program, and then click Change. In the Currently installed programs box, click the listing for Microsoft Office or Microsoft Word, depending on whether you installed Word as part of Office or as an individual program, and then click Change.

Select the font set that you need, click the arrow next to your selection, and then select Run from My Computer. Tip: When you open an encoded text file, Word applies the fonts that are defined in the Web Options dialog box. In the General section, click Web Options. You can select the options on the Fonts tab in the Web Options dialog box to customize the font for each character set.

Some effective tips to prevent the same could be:. Always maintain a backup of the important word files. By doing so, they can ensure that whenever any error like the word file encoding error occurs, their important data and files are secure at some other place.

This will ensure that no encoding errors occur and the important files of the users are intact. Close or terminate the system or the MS word file only after saving their text files properly to avoid any data loss due to encoding errors. How to Repair Word Document in Word and Invest in good repair software for the fixing of encoding error in Word. If the encoding standard is incompatible, it could cause this error.

To fix this error, upgrade the Office suite's compatible Service Pack. Restoring a corrupt text file can be resolved if you go back to the Previous Version of the Word file in concern.

This way you can keep backdating till you get to a version that works for you. If the document is refusing to open at all, use draft mode to open the file and don't update links.