Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I am just tried to open a text document I have been working on and for the first time ever using Open Office a menu appears called ASCII Filter Options. It gives me the options of character set, default font, language and paragraph break. I didn't change any of the default settings on the menu and when I clicked OK and opened my document there are 3 pages of this:
########################################################################################################

AAAARRRGH!!

Has my file been permanently corrupted? If so, can I EVER trust Open Office to not do this again?
(yes I know I should always back up, but I haven't, so this is the only copy I have and its taken me around 8 hours to write....)

Is there any way I can salvage my work? And how do I stop this ever happening again?

With thanks,
Adam

I am not sure if it will stop it happening again for all time, but you should be leisurely in your shut down of OpenOffice and then your computer. The OpenOffice file format is complex and takes a little longer to generate and write to disk than simpler formats. So you should close your OpenOffice file and OpenOffice, tidy your papers and pens, then formally shut down your computer - don't just save the OO file and snap off the power button or close the laptop lid. Taking the few extra seconds to do things in this way will take a lot less time than having to recreate or repair a damaged file.

You should download an undelete utility such as Recuva or PhotoRec and see if it can find a deleted copy of your file or a temporary file containing some or all of your data. You should also look in the Temporary and backup directories pointed to by /Tools/Options/OpenOffice/Paths. Rename any files there to .odt and see if they contain any of your data.