I can't open a Word file. Why can't I open a file in Word on my mobile device? Explorer error

The most common reason that you cannot open word document or exel on your computer, as practice shows, this lack of programs is necessary for this.

Programs for opening Word and Excel files are called the office suite. Checking its availability is very simple:

  • Right-click on an empty area on your desktop.
  • Select "Create"
  • If the window that appears does not have the “Word Document” or “Exel Table” option, I congratulate you. You have found the reason why you cannot open these documents. You do not have the office suite installed

As you may have guessed, to solve the problem you need to install this same office package. The most common is Microsoft Office (paid).

Download and install the package. Now you can open Word and Excel files without any problems

If the office suite is already installed, but word does not open

In this case, there are several possibilities for the problem to arise. I will list the most common options and ways to solve them.

Damaged file

In this case, unfortunately, you are unlikely to be able to do anything. If you were sent a file by mail, ask to resend it. It is unlikely, but possible, that the file was damaged in transit. It's easy to check - try opening 2-3 other files. If no problems arise, the problem is most likely in the file itself

Explorer error

Try opening the start menu and find in the list of programs the one you use to open such documents. Launch the program. Select File > Open in the program window, and specify the path to the document. In some cases this helps.

Outdated software

Quite a common problem. Look at what office software package you have installed. If this is Microsoft Office 2003, or God forbid Microsoft Office 98 / Office XP, look at the calendar. It's time to update. If you don’t want to buy an office suite from Microsoft, use the free analogues that we cited above.

It's broken

In rare cases, a crash occurs within the office suite itself. It’s very easy to check - if now you can’t open documents that you previously opened without problems, the reason may be in the package itself. Completely remove it, if you don’t know how to do it correctly, use this guide: pa, and install the package again.

Write in the comments if you managed to solve the problem with opening Word or Excel files. If there was any reason other than those described in this article, share the solution in the comments. This will help people who find themselves in a similar situation.

How to open a word document?


Word is one of the most popular text editors. Basically, in order to open a document in doc format that is read by a text editor, no effort is required from the user. However, there are times when the document does not open. The reasons for this may be different, so in this article we will look at them in detail.

Also in the article you can find information on how to open documents in doc format and other text formats using similar text editors from Microsoft.

How to open a text document using word

This is a fairly simple operation that even a child can handle.

  1. You need to select the text document you want to open. Right-click on it and select “Open with” from the context menu.
  2. Then you need to select the word text editor from the proposed list. This way you can open documents in docx, doc, dot, docm, xml, xps and others.

The user can also open in new versions text editor word documents that were saved in older versions. However, it should be taken into account that some formats, for example, pdf, may not fully correspond to the original document when opened in a given text editor. It is recommended to open them in a specialized software adobe pdf reader.

If word does not open documents

One of the main reasons why a word text editor refuses to open a particular document is file corruption. The damaged file can be recovered using the built-in recovery feature. To do this, you need to open a text editor and go to the “File” tab, then “Open” and select “Open and Restore” from the pop-up menu.

This method is considered very effective, however, it does not guarantee the recovery of the entire text. Part of the file may still not
subject to restoration.

Also enough effective method is to use a special program Recuva. It allows you to restore microsoft docs word, excel.

Another reason could be that your text editor is outdated. You can easily update it on the Microsoft website, however, if you used a key obtained illegally, you will have to pay for the new version.

At the same time, Microsoft offers free analogues of the word text editor. We are talking about so-called viewer programs. They allow you to open and view as well as print text. However, their functionality is very limited compared to the full package. You can download these analogs using these links.

When downloading another file from the Internet, many of us do not think about the fact that the file on the computer may simply not open. And this happens, I must say, not so rarely. The fact is that there are a huge number of file formats, each of which is opened by the system using special programs. If you have the required program on your computer, the file will open (unless, of course, it was damaged during downloading). If the desired program no, then there will be problems opening the file.

Therefore, it is logical, before downloading a file, to inquire about its format, which can be determined by its extension.

Read more about this in the post. In order for us to better recognize the file type, a specific icon is attached to it, for example:

text .txt- a regular text file that will open in any Windows notepad and on any computer.

text .doc- microsoft word program document

website .html- this is a saved web page (page of a website)

Each type of file has its own program that can “read” or “open” it. For example, files with the extension .txt are opened by the Notepad program, files with the extension .doc - Microsoft program Word, files.html - any Internet browser, for example, Internet explorer.

If you know that the necessary program to open a file is not installed on your computer, it is better to look for a file in a different extension (for example, an audio clip in the most common mp3 format or an image in jpeg format).

Very often when working with files, it happens that Windows does not recognize a file and therefore cannot open it.

This happens because the type of file being opened is unknown to the system. In other words, the file is “not tied” to any of the programs installed on the system, and the system simply does not know which program to open this file with.

This is expressed in the form of a message box "Failed to open file" , which appears when you click on the file:

Thus, if such a window appears, we simply need to register this file type in the system and “bind” this type to a specific program.

But before we start linking, we need to understand what kind of file we are trying to open, and what program can open it. And you can do this by looking at the extension of the file being opened (in my example it is fb2):


It may happen that you do not have an extension in the file name. To enable display of file extensions in Windows you need to click at the top in the open folder window Tools -> Folder Options. In the dialog box that opens, go to the tab View and find the item at the bottom of the list Hide extensions for registered file types and uncheck the box.

If the file extension is unfamiliar to you and you don’t know which program can open the file of this type, then you can simply search the Internet for the answer to this question:

Thus, we will find out which programs can be used to open a document of this type, and if none of the suitable programs are installed on our computer, then we need to download and install such a program.

It is possible that immediately after installing the program, the program will automatically “link” our previously unknown file to itself and when opening it, the window will no longer appear. However, this may not happen, so if the window with a message about unsuccessful opening of the file appears again, we need to select the item in it Selecting a program from the list of installed programs and press Ok :


If the program you need is not in the list of programs presented, but you know that it is on the computer, you need to click the button Review and find what you need manually (in the place where we installed it or usually in C:\program files\) and select it (in my example it is the CoolReader3 program).

Note, What application programs always have an extension EXE:


After this, the program will appear in the window Program selection and our task is to select it and, if desired, put a tick Use the selected program(if we want files with a given extension to always be opened only by this program):

All manipulations were performed in the browser. For this, the window looks a little different:

If we did everything correctly, then the next thing we will see is the opening of our file by the specified program:

However keep in mind, that you can “link” a file with a program only if you are sure that the selected program is really suitable for this type of file. If this turns out not to be the case, then opening such a file may cause the program to freeze or generate an error.

By the way, there may be another situation when the file does not open when working, for example, with Microsoft Windows: It becomes impossible to load a Word document into the editor window, since the system reports that the document is occupied by another application. Most often, such phenomena are observed after the user has forcibly canceled a task (for example, unloaded a frozen Word from memory) using the Task Manager. This happens for the following reason.

In addition to tasks, Windows also has processes. A process is a virtual memory address space allocated for execution by a program or itself. operating system any procedures. One task can activate several different processes in Windows: for example, Word (one task) can simultaneously work with several text documents(one document - one process). In our case, after the Word editor stopped working (dismissed the task), the document processing process opened by it remained in the computer’s memory, that is, Windows continues to believe that the document is still open in the editor window, although the editor itself is not running. This problem is solved as follows.

Open the Task Manager window by pressing the keys simultaneously Ctrl, Alt and Del. In Windows 2000/XP, click at the top of the Task Manager window to open the Processes tab. Click on the file process in the list that you cannot open (usually in the Username column it is indicated by the name of your account) and remove it by pressing the button End the process.

However, you can simply restart your computer.

Error when opening Word file. There is a solution. Word error when trying to open a file

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I decided to write a short post regarding everyone’s favorite Word program.

And we'll talk about the error of opening a file in Word, which I'm already fed up with. I decided to deal with it today. And this is what I came to. So, when receiving files in Word format, everything was downloaded normally and displayed on my computer.

But when opening the files, a Word error popped up when trying to open the file. How can we solve this Word error?

Error opening Word file. Word, error when opening a file. Step by step solution...

Open Word. At the top left click “File”

then go to “Settings”, look for “Trust Control Center” in the list that opens. Click on it.

Then a new tab opens, where we look for “Protected View”, click on this button. After all these manipulations, a window will open in which we need to uncheck the first three lines; there are four lines with checkboxes.

The three lines are:

  • Enable protected browsing for files from the Internet;
  • Enable Protected View for files in potentially unsafe locations;
  • Enable Protected View for Outlook attachments.

We remove the checkboxes from the above restrictions, save the settings and open the file that we did not open. It should be opening now.

Remove protected browsing

In my case, it was, of course, possible to disable only the first restriction, that is, “Enable Protected View for files from the Internet,” since I received the file from the etxt.ru service via the Internet, but in order not to return again to the Trust Center in Word, I advise you to uncheck all three boxes for protected views.

By the way, at etxt.ru, copywriters earn good money.

So, to summarize: open Word/File/Options/Trust Center/Trust Center Settings/Protected View/Uncheck the first three checkboxes.

The window with the initial text “Word error when trying to open the file...” will no longer pop up.

Error when opening a Word file - now you know how to fix it! Good luck with Word.

P.S. I am attaching a screenshot of my earnings in affiliate programs. Moreover, I remind you that anyone can earn money this way, even a beginner! The main thing is to do it correctly, which means learning from those who are already making money, that is, from Internet business professionals.

Having problems opening a file? The file might be saved in a format that Word doesn't support on your device. Find your device and view the table to see if this is an issue.

Note: This article applies to mobile devices only. If you're having trouble opening a document in Word on your computer, open the document after the file corruption error occurs.

File type

Opening and Editing

Open for read only

Word Documents (DOCX)

Binary Documents (DOC)

Word Templates (DOTX)

Binary Templates (DOT)

OpenDocument Text (ODT)

(convert to DOCX format for editing)

File in PDF format(PDF)

Web pages (MHT, MHTML)

Simple text files(TXT)

Works 6–9 (WPS) documents

File type

Opening and Editing

Open for read only

Word Documents (DOCX)

Binary Documents (DOC)

(convert to DOCX format for editing)

Word Templates (DOTX)

Binary Templates (DOT)

Macro-enabled document (DOCM)

(convert to DOCX format for editing)

Files protected by IRM technology

OpenDocument Text (ODT)

(convert to DOCX format for editing)

(convert to DOCX format for editing)

Rich Text Files (RTF)

Word XML, Word 2003 XML, or other XML files (XML)

Document in HTM or HTML format

Web pages (MHT, MHTML)

Plain text files (TXT)

(convert to DOCX format for editing)

Works 6–9 (WPS) documents

File type

Opening and Editing

Open for read only

Word Documents (DOCX)

Binary Documents (DOC)

(convert to DOCX format for editing)

Word Templates (DOTX)

Binary Templates (DOT)

Macro-enabled document (DOCM)

Files protected by IRM technology

OpenDocument Text (ODT)

(convert to DOCX format for editing)

Password protected files (password to open)

Password protected files (password to change)

Rich Text Files (RTF)

Word XML, Word 2003 XML, or other XML files (XML)

Document in HTM or HTML format

Web pages (MHT, MHTML)

Plain text files (TXT)

(convert to DOCX format for editing)

Works 6–9 (WPS) documents

Macros are saved for DOC and DOCM formats. Macros cannot be changed or saved.

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Note: This page has been automatically translated and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors. It is important to us that this article is useful to you. Was the information useful? For convenience also (in English).