Quoting Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...>:
I'd go for a slightly more terse wording (and I wouldn't bother saying try or automatic) but this is an excellent idea.
This file is damaged, would you like to repair it? | Cancel | [ Repair Document ]
Some extra explanation is needed to manage expectations. Given an arbitrary corrupt document, here's no guarantee that whatever heuristics the permissive parser applies won't still produce garbage or simply fail outright in nontrival cases.
From a user's perspective, it's a matter of:
"Hey, I can't load this file because it's damaged, but I might be able to recover some data for you. Do you want me to try?"
versus
"Hey, this file is damaged but I can magically fix it for you. Do you want me to fix it?"
Per most HIGs, "This file is damaged, try to repair it?" should probably be bold heading; the remainder of the explanatory text would be presented in smaller text at normal weight.
-mental