How to avoid corrupt Word-Docs by using the HTTP-Sharepoint Request in Powerautomate

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Hi Nix, Norbert, RNG-TGP

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Microsoft Power Platform Community Forum Thread

I also tried to reproduce your case and encounter the same behavior for Word documents. The HTTP call only worked for txt file on my side. (I tested with docx and xlsx extensions, but the result is the same, only txt worked).Can you try to change it to txt extension to confirm this behavior?

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The Word document becomes corrupt because the HTTP action is not sending the file content in the correct binary format, even though the same content works with the “Create file” action.

To avoid corruption when using the SharePoint HTTP request:

1. Ensure the body of the HTTP request is the raw file content (binary), not JSON or text. In Power Automate this usually means:
   • Use the Outputs of the “Populate a Word document” (or the file content property) directly in the HTTP body.
   • Do not wrap it in JSON or convert it to string.
2. Set the Content-Type header to a binary media type that matches the file:
   • Content-Type: application/octet-stream
3. Confirm the SharePoint REST endpoint is the file upload endpoint that accepts binary content in the request body, for example:
   • .../GetFolderByServerRelativeUrl('/sites/.../Library')/Files/add(url='filename.docx',overwrite=true)
4. If the file still opens as corrupt, download it from the library and compare its size with the file created by the “Create file” action. A smaller or larger size indicates the HTTP action is altering the content (for example, encoding as text). In that case, reconfigure the HTTP body to use the file content output exactly as provided by the document-generation step.

If a file that previously opened correctly now fails to open, treat it as potentially corrupt and download it from SharePoint, then attempt repair using the Office repair guidance. Corrupt files can prevent SharePoint documents from opening correctly.

References:

• Fix problems opening documents in SharePoint libraries