Large Word Document spontaneously gains pages or loses words.

Anonymous
2018-03-02T21:38:27+00:00

When I transfered a large Word 2010 Doc to my new computer (into Word 2016) from the cloud, 1500 words disappeared. Nobody could figure out why or which words were missing.

Now that same file (Word 2016) has spontaneously added 10 pages (it went from 469 to 479 pages), but there are no blank pages and the page format and word count haven't changed. Can anyone tell me what could have happened?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-03-07T18:51:38+00:00

    I've spent DAYS comparing docs trying to find the difference. Since I was unsuccessful, I came here for help.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-03-07T18:46:29+00:00

    Hello Desiree,

    Thank you for your reply. It happened to one file (I rarely keep page/word counts on the other files). I hope this one is not corrupted since I've been working on it for 3 years and it's over 420,000 words. For the same reason, I can't simply rewrite it.

    Nobody but me works on it. I regularly save it to the computer, an external hard drive, a flash drive, and to OneDrive. I also email myself a copy at the end of the day.

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  3. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2018-03-07T09:06:24+00:00

    Have you compared the document as it is now with how it was before the pages were added to determine where the difference is.

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-03-07T08:43:43+00:00

    Hello Sue,

    It is possible that the file you are referring to is corrupted that's why it's adding additional pages from the original page count. However, before we conclude that it is the cause of this problem, we need to gather additional information to have a better view of this concern. Kindly answer the following questions:

    • Does the issue happen to a specific Word file?
    • Is your Word file shared?

    For now, we advise recreating the file (if possible) and checking if the same issue will occur. We also suggest saving the file to a different location.

    Please post back with the result for further assistance.

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-03-05T01:57:50+00:00

    And as I've said before, Doug, this problem occurred MONTHS after working almost daily with the doc on the new computer. Again, nothing else changed except the number of pages.

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