[Solved] MS Word document content removed when renamed

[barrygale]

I created a Word document (.doc) from a template. After saving the document I changed the name of the document in the folder. The document still has the same size but when I open it only the first of 7 pages and the first line of that page can be seen. Is there any way of recovering the previous content of the file?

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Thank you for your help and advice John Ha. The converted file can be deleted.

Thank you also to Bill. That solves the problem and explains where the missing text went to.

Just after posting the request I found that I was able to open the file, complete text with formatting, using File -> Preview in Web Browser, and then save the file as .odt. This also solved the problem.

[Hagar Delest]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

I don't think so. Have you filled in more than the first line still available?
That's the problem with external formats like .doc/.docx that were not designed to be compatible with anything else than MS Office.
Can you upload the template so that we see what are the items that are missing after the save (see: How to attach a document here)?

[John_Ha]

I don't know why but there is text in the file which does not display. I was able to recover the text in text.odt.

You should not save documents as .doc files - see [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for the many reasons why, and why you should always keep the master copies of your work in .odt files.

Please let us know when you have downloaded the file so it and the original can be deleted for privacy reasons.

Showing that a problem has been solved helps others searching so, if your problem is now solved, please view your first post in this thread and click the Edit button (top right in the post) and add [Solved] in front of the subject.

[File deleted]

[Bill]

There are 3 rows in the table in the .doc file. The top and bottom rows are set to "Fit to size", but the middle row is not. Select the whole table and set all rows "Fit to size".

[Hagar Delest]

Ah, well done. Should have tried a bit more. I don't remember seeing the usual red triangle telling there is content that could not be displayed (with LO on my Windows 10 machine).

[John_Ha]

There are 3 rows in the table in the .doc file. The top and bottom rows are set to "Fit to size", but the middle row is not. Select the whole table and set all rows "Fit to size".

Bill
How do you do that? I cannot find any way to do it.

I applied cell boundaries and discovered something funny - the border between the top and bottom row was twice as thick as I expected. I wondered if a row had been set with zero height so I selected the table > r-click > Rows > Space equally. This brought a new Row 2 into view. It was pages deep and had all the text in it.

The .doc created two tables when saved as a .odt file so I strongly suspect the file has been corrupted. I would copy the text out of it and start a new, clean file.

[Hagar Delest]

How do you do that? I cannot find any way to do it.

Select the whole table and use the Table toolbar button for line sizing.

Note that the MS Word rendering is even more misleading, it does not even show any thicker border unless you zoom in quite a bit.

MS Word.png (11.01 KiB) Viewed 132 times

[Bill]

How do you do that? I cannot find any way to do it.

After the table has been selected, either use Table > AutoFit > Row height to get to the "Fit to size" option or use Table > AutoFit > Optimal Row Height which seems to make the default row height close to 0 and enables the "Fit to size" option for all selected rows.

Another alternative is to click in the bottom row, press the up arrow key to move the cursor to the second row, then hold down Alt and press the down arrow key. This increases the row height and turns on the "Fit to size" option for the second row.

I don't know if there is some corruption in the .doc file, but AOO has crashed a few times when working with the .doc file. I've also saved the .doc file in .odt format and haven't seen any crashes when working with the .odt file.

[RoryOF]

don't know if there is some corruption in the .doc file, but AOO has crashed a few times when working with the .doc file. I've also saved the .doc file in .odt format and haven't seen any crashes when working with the .odt file.

There have been reports of instability when tables extend over multiple pages - I recollect one case on Forum where there was a 40+ page table. This document has a table extending over 7(?) pages, which may produce the crash. I'd chance a two page table, but if I had a many page table my instinct would be to move to separate (identical) tables for each page. However, I don't use tables, so take my suggestion with a grain of salt!

[John_Ha]

Bill, Hagar

Thanks. I was missing the Table > Select > Table ..., step. After selecting the table, the menu in the Table bar becomes Optimise > Distribute rows equally. The Distribute rows equally option was greyed out until I select the table.

Also, after fixing it, setting the row height to 0.1cm causes it again.

[John_Ha]

There have been reports of instability when tables extend over multiple pages - I recollect one case on Forum where there was a 40+ page table.

I suspect other causes rather than mere length.

I have just put eight chapters of Vanity Fair into a table and it extended to 57 pages. Initial page layout was slow and it kept pausing while scrolling but after that is was fine.

I often find that tables in master/sub documents split across several pages leaving large gaps between the bits. On thinking about it, the gaps are probably as a result of the slow page layout.