A customer had an issue with a very important MS Word document and did not have a backup copy. The document was corrupt and she wanted this repairing. She was really stressed and in tears.
I downlaoded open office and opened the Open Office version of Word. I then dragged her corrupt MS Word document into the Open Office Word document which repaired the corrupt document.
She did not have to pay for any recovery software.
Quite a handy tip that might come in use for you