massamaahinen sent me the 16MB file.
massamaahinen wrote: "End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not a Zip file, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part Zip file."
The file does not have a PK marker at the front and is therefore not a well constructed ZIP file. However it does have some characteristics of a ZIPped .doc file including some metadata saying it is a .doc file. I was able to recover about eleven pages of text from two different parts of the file, both fairly close to the start of the file, which may, or may not, be from the lost document. The file looks like a binary memory dump. I asked PKZIP for Windows to repair it and it could find nothing in it - the repaired file was 0 bytes long.
I responded
I am sorry but the ZIP file is very badly corrupted and I have only been able to find 11 pages of text which may not be from the document. They were in two separate parts of the file.
Be sure to visit
[Tutorial] How to find and un-delete AOO temporary files for detailed instructions on how to
a) use
Previous Versions (W7 and later) to recover previous versions of the file (is there something similar on MacOS and Linux?);
b) recover your file as it was when you last opened or saved it, or as it was when it was last saved with AutoRecovery;
c) find previous versions of the file in the folder it is located in, but which have since been deleted;
d) un-delete the temporary files AOO wrote while you were editing the file, and then deleted. This will recover your file as it was when you last opened or you last saved it.
The tutorial was written for .odt files. a), b) and c) should work for your .doc file. d) will not work for you because .doc files are designed by Microsoft to be placed in memory when they are opened and and no temporary file is created. .odt and .docx files create a temporary file when opened and this temporary file can often be recovered.
If you have a SSD all deleted files get cleansed automatically so you will not be able to find them.