OpenOffice ate my book «Q23»

Issues installing under the Mac OSX - X11 - Aqua
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tygertyger
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OpenOffice ate my book «Q23»

Post by tygertyger »

i am devastated open office ate my manuscript it opens but now there is just symbols . I am super upset it is months of work gone .
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Hagar Delest
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Re: open office ate my book

Post by Hagar Delest »

Hi and welcome to the forum!

See: [Tutorial] The Dreaded Pound Signs: file reduced to ####.
Good luck. I hope you had backups.
LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Xubuntu 23.10 and 7.6.4.1 portable on Windows 10
tygertyger
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Re: OpenOffice ate my book

Post by tygertyger »

no i ned help hoping some one can fix the file for me
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Zizi64
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Re: OpenOffice ate my book

Post by Zizi64 »

no i ned help hoping some one can fix the file for me
Then, please upload your file here. We will examine it. But - in my opinion - there is not any hope...


Suggestions for the future work:
- Change to LibreOffice
- Always create more than one backup copies of your important documents.
Tibor Kovacs, Hungary; LO7.5.8 /Win7-10 x64Prof.
PortableApps/winPenPack: LO3.3.0-7.6.2;AOO4.1.14
Please, edit the initial post in the topic: add the word [Solved] at the beginning of the subject line - if your problem has been solved.
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RoryOF
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Re: OpenOffice ate my book

Post by RoryOF »

Usually such a problem is caused by over-hasty user closedown of a computer or shutting a laptop lid before the drive has finished writing.

I suggest you download an undelete utility and run it on your hard disk as soon as possible. PhotoRec might be a suitable application; there are others.
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15 on Xubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
John_Ha
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Re: OpenOffice ate my book

Post by John_Ha »

If your file is full of #### characters there is no hope for the file - there is no user data in it. See Why is my Writer file full of ##### (nulls)?
tygertyger wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 6:56 am ... it is months of work gone.
I can never understand why people don't backup important work. It would be a matter of a few seconds to get the file from a backup.

See [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) find any temporary files AOO wrote while you were editing the file but which have not yet been deleted;

e) un-delete the temporary files AOO wrote while you were editing the file, and then deleted. d) and e) will recover your file as it was when you last opened or you last saved it.

If you cannot follow the instructions ask someone with more PC skills to help you. Act quickly - the longer you wait the more likely any deleted temporary files are to be overwritten and therefore lost.
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
tygertyger
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Re: OpenOffice ate my book

Post by tygertyger »

Unlike the windows version I never found a backup option and since I am disabled and live on very little a month open office was my only option to work with- and yes it is full of the hash tags .Thank you for your initial snark though sure made me feel even better about all this!
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tygertyger
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Re: OpenOffice ate my book

Post by tygertyger »

Zizi64 wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 7:34 am
no i ned help hoping some one can fix the file for me
Then, please upload your file here. We will examine it. But - in my opinion - there is not any hope...


Suggestions for the future work:
- Change to LibreOffice
- Always create more than one backup copies of your important documents.
yeah I just found out it is dead I will look into libre if it is more stable -
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RoryOF
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Re: OpenOffice ate my book

Post by RoryOF »

Before doing anything else, run an undelete utility; you might not recover all, but there is a good chance you will recover some of your document.
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keme
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Re: OpenOffice ate my book

Post by keme »

Some journaling file systems and cloud storage services does file versioning. Alas, Apple's file system and iCloud seem to depend on the client app to request "new version", judging from what it says on Apple's support pages. May still be worth looking into.
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Re: OpenOffice ate my book

Post by John_Ha »

tygertyger wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 2:52 pm Thank you for your initial snark
If you actually read what I said you will find it was not a snark, nor even about you. It was about my not understanding people who don't backup important work.
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
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RoryOF
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Re: OpenOffice ate my book

Post by RoryOF »

An undelete utility will search the drive for a now deleted working copy. The sooner this is done, the better the chance of a successful or a partial recovery.
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MrProgrammer
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Re: OpenOffice ate my book

Post by MrProgrammer »

tygertyger wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 6:56 am I am super upset it is months of work gone.
tygertyger wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 2:52 pm Unlike the windows version I never found a backup option …
Mac FAQ Q23: How do I backup OpenOffice files on my Mac?
Mac FAQ Q24: How do I restore OpenOffice files from backups?

John_Ha wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 12:48 pm See [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete AOO temporary files for detailed instructions …
If your machine has a solid state disk (SSD), recovery of deleted files is unlikely because the SSD sets that storage to zeros as soon as the file is deleted, thus there is nothing to recover except zeros. Use backups to ensure that you can restore your files if they become damaged.
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AOO 4.1.7 Build 9800, MacOS 13.6.3, iMac Intel.   The locale for any menus or Calc formulas in my posts is English (USA).
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Hagar Delest
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Re: OpenOffice ate my book

Post by Hagar Delest »

tygertyger wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 7:16 am no i ned help hoping some one can fix the file for me
Sometimes it does not work like this because actions have to be made on your machine.
That's what is explained in the various topics linked.
LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Xubuntu 23.10 and 7.6.4.1 portable on Windows 10
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