Like any other piece of software, Microsoft Word is prone to bugs and other technical issues. Usually, these issues are nothing more than minor inconveniences, but some of the more severe glitches can have terrifying consequences.
Imagine opening up an important document for work, only to find that all the text has been replaced by glitched letters and random symbols. That’s unfortunately what happened to me, and it could happen to you, too! Thankfully, it’s not as bad as it sounds, and you can easily fix this problem without losing any progress whatsoever.
How to Identify Microsoft Word’s “Corrupted Text” Glitch
Before anything else, it’s important to make sure that the problem you’re encountering is related to Microsoft Word, and not the result of a broader issue affecting your device. The “corrupted text” glitch that I’ll be discussing here will look something like this:
You might also see a mixture of normal text and glitched symbols, or have newly added text appear incorrectly. This glitch comes in varying degrees of severity, but the general idea is that your text won’t appear with the proper characters. Although that may seem like a major issue, it’s most likely just a visual bug—albeit, a very inconvenient one. In most cases, this problem can be solved in a few simple steps.
Swap to a Different Font
For those of you in a hurry and looking for a temporary fix to ignore the problem, you can usually avoid this bug by simply swapping to a different font. In my case, the bugged text only appeared when using the Aptos font, though you might encounter the same issue on a different font. If you need to change the font for a lengthy document, you can manually highlight the text or press CTRL+A to instantly select all text in the file, then choose a replacement font.
However, I don’t recommend leaving this glitch unresolved forever, as it can be the result of a bigger issue that will cause more bugs and potentially corrupt your Word document. While that’s not always the case, it’s better to be safe than sorry by trying any of the following permanent fixes.
Re-install the Broken Font
If the glitched text only appears for one specific font, then the bug is related to the font itself. Either the font was improperly installed, or the Word app is unable to properly recognize the font. You can easily fix this problem by re-downloading the bugged font from its original source (just make sure it’s from a trustworthy website).
If the bugged font is one of the standard fonts that came preloaded with Word, you can get them directly from Microsoft. For example, you can download Word’s default Aptos font from the Microsoft website.
Regardless of whether you’re downloading an official Microsoft font or a custom typeface, the installation process is exactly the same. After you download the “.zip” file for the font, unzip the file by right-clicking it and selecting “Extract All” or using a third-party app like 7-Zip. Next, select a folder in which to store the contents of the file.
After you extract the contents of the “.zip” file, open the destination folder. It should contain “.tff” files labeled after different variants of the downloaded font. Find and open the file that corresponds with the bugged font.
This will open a new window containing a list of example sentences showcasing the font. Make sure you have selected the correct font, then click “Install” at the top of the window.
Once it has finished installing, all Word documents using the font should start to display the proper characters. If you still encounter the bug, the problem is likely related to the Word document itself or your current version of the Word app. In these cases, you’ll need to try a different fix.
Update Microsoft 365
You may encounter the corrupted text glitch if you’re running an outdated version of Microsoft Word. You can fix this by running an update to Microsoft 365.
Start by opening up the Word app and selecting “Account” on the home menu.
From the account page, click “Update Options.” This will open a drop-down list. At the top of the list, click “Update Now.”
Microsoft 365 will begin checking for missing updates. If you have the latest version of Microsoft 365 installed, a pop-up will notify you that your apps are up-to-date. Otherwise, you’ll see a different pop-up showing which apps need to be updated.
Before you continue, be sure to save any files you have opened in Word or other Microsoft 365 apps. Once you start the update, any currently open files will automatically close.
Once you’ve saved your documents, click “Install” to complete the download process.
Convert the Document to a Different Character Encoding
You may encounter similar text issues when downloading or sharing Word documents with others. A document that appears perfectly fine on your computer may show up with corrupted text for someone else, and vice versa. In these cases, the cause of the bug is a character encoding error.
What is Character Encoding?
Character encoding refers to the specific set of glyphs and symbols your computer uses to display text. For example, most of you reading this article are used to seeing the Latin alphabet (the letters used in English and many similar languages) when typing out a document or reading online articles. This is because most of your browsers and apps are set to a character encoding that primarily uses alphanumeric characters.
To put it simply, character encodings essentially serve as databases that dictate which characters the computer uses to display text. Every unique character is stored as a “code point,” each represented by a different integer. However, different character encodings don’t always share the same exact characters or number of code points. For example, the character “ё” is recognized by the numeric value 184 in Windows-1251 encoding—which is primarily used for the Cyrillic scripts of languages like Russian and Ukranian. But in Unicode—the universal character encoding standard used for almost all modern websites and programs around the world—the character “ё” is represented by the numeric value 0401.
Whenever you open a document or access a website, your computer interprets the code points first, then displays the corresponding characters based on its own encoding. However, if the original text was written for another character encoding that uses different code points, then the text may not appear correctly on your system.
How to Fix Character Encoding Problems in Word
By default, Word will processes text in UTF-8, a type of Unicode that’s designed to be compatible with ASCII encoding. This normally isn’t a problem, as UTF-8 supports characters and symbols from nearly every major language. However, if you were to convert text from another file type with a different encoding standard into a Word document, it may appear as a jumbled mess of characters.
In some cases, you can fix this issue by converting your Word document into another encoding. Open the document you want to convert, then click “File.” Go to “Options” at the bottom of the startup screen, then click on the “Advanced” tab.
Scroll down until you reach the “General” options, then check off the box labeled “Confirm file format conversion on open.”
Click “OK,” then save and exit from the document. Open the Word File again, and you’ll see a pop-up box labeled “Convert File.” From the list of options included in the box, select “Encoded Text,” then click “OK.”
Another dialogue box will appear. Select the bubble labeled “Other encoding” and choose the suitable character encoding from the list. If you aren’t sure which one to choose, you can check the preview at the bottom of the pop-up box to see if a selected encoding repairs the text.
It should be noted that this process won’t always result in a perfect conversion. Some characters may be lost when converting documents into other encodings. If you’re working with a much more obscure encoding that Word isn’t equipped to handle, you might not have the option to properly convert it into UTF-8, even with these steps. However, these scenarios are incredibly rare.
Delete and Reinstall Microsoft Word
If nothing else works, you can try uninstalling and reinstalling Word. A faulty app installation or update error can cause unexpected bugs such as the corrupted text glitch.
Uninstalling Word
There are few ways to uninstall Word, depending on the app version you’re using.
If you have a standalone version of Word, you can uninstall it by opening the control panel on your computer (if you don’t know where to find it, type “control panel” into the Start Menu search bar), then click “Uninstall a program.”
Scroll through the list until you find Microsoft Word, then double-click it and select “Yes” in the following pop-up box. If you can’t find Microsoft Word in this list, your version of Word might be part of a Microsoft 365 bundle. In that case, scroll through the list until you find “Microsoft 365,” then double-click the app and select “Yes” when prompted to uninstall it.
If you somehow cannot find Microsoft Word or Microsoft 365 in your app list, you can use the uninstall troubleshooter from the official Microsoft website to safely remove Office 365 from your computer.
Reinstalling Word
As with the removal process, there are multiple methods for downloading Microsoft Word. If you have the Microsoft 365 suite linked to your device, you can individually re-download Word and other Office apps from the Microsoft Store.
However, if you have to uninstall the full Microsoft 365 bundle, you can re-download all the apps at once by visiting the apps page on the Microsoft website. Click “Install Apps” at the top-right of the page, then select “Microsoft 365 Apps” from the drop-down menu.
You’ll be taken to another page with a pop-up menu. Select the language and version of Microsoft 365 you want to download, then click “Install.” This will download an executable file labeled “OfficeSetup.exe.” Run the executable, and follow the included instructions to finish reinstalling Word.
With this fresh install, any issues caused by installation problems or corrupted data should be resolved, including the text glitch.
Word’s text glitches usually don’t require any of the drastic methods I described here. In most cases, the solution is as simple as downloading a missing font or updating the app. However, if you still find your documents looking strange or notice that certain fonts aren’t working like they should, you should try each of these solutions to prevent any other unwanted surprises from affecting your work.
