Question Microsoft Publisher file troubleshooting

[CrisR82]

Today I came across an issue that seemed simple enough to troubleshoot, but ended up kind of a nightmare to figure out - a friend's mother got their Microsoft Office Publisher file (a book they are writing) somehow corrupted. According the description I was given, she was moving the file from one USB drive to another when something glitched out and the file ended up corrupted (error message being "Publisher cannot open this file"). The file itself has always been saved to a USB flash drive, it doesn't seem to have ever been on the PC itself.

My brilliant idea to use a general data recovery app to recover the file or one of the previously deleted versions basically failed (though thinking back that was kind'a obvious, being flash storage 'n all), but I was able to confirm that the file's current size seems to be what is expected of it to be.
So I've been going around trying to find something that can perform a file repair, or somehow extract the info from inside, but so far I was able to locate only 2 apps that supposedly do this, with only one of them showing any results at all ("SoftwareRecovery for Publisher" but all the text is replaced with the word - demo - so I can't just pull the trigger on paying $150 for a license, while the other one literally did nothing).

Does anyone have any info on how to approach this?
The PC used to create it is a Windows 7 laptop with MS Office 2007 (yes, I was quite shocked to hear that too)

P.S. it's a 550MB file

 

[Secret-Squirrel]

.............P.S. it's a 550MB file

I'm wondering if perhaps the file is not actually corrupt but rather it exceeds Publisher 2007's maximum file size.

Do you have a recent version of Publisher you can try and open it in? If you don't then apparently LibreOffice's "Draw" application can open and edit Microsoft's .pub files.

PS: To scan for and repair corrupted files then you should start by using the Windows Disk Check tool on the affected USB drive.

 

[USAFRet]

Copying from one USB to another, does the file still reside on the original USB drive?

And whatever the resolution of THIS file, please implore the user to start doping things responsibly.
To start, backups, and not using a flash drive as the single repository.

 

[CrisR82]

I'm wondering if perhaps the file is not actually corrupt but rather it exceeds Publisher 2007's maximum file size.

Do you have a recent version of Publisher you can try and open it in? If you don't then apparently LibreOffice's "Draw" application can open and edit Microsoft's .pub files.

PS: To scan for and repair corrupted files then you should start by using the Windows Disk Check tool on the affected USB drive.

I myself have MS Office 2016 with Publisher included but same error is showing up there when I tried opening it...however - that LibreOffice suggestion did the trick! Well, not exactly, it doesn't fix the actual .pub file but I was able to open it (25 minutes load time o_o ) and extract the info in a PDF file, which is still fantastic news!

Thanks so much mate! ^-^

I'll be having a very lengthy discussion with her on the 1-2-3 Backup rule later today...and insist on upgrading both the laptop and office pack to something supported as soon as possible.