[Hint] How did I fix my ODT file

[John_Ha]

Have a look at

Using 7-ZIP

Inside an odt file

[powerline]

Can anyone help me with this file? It's a very important one.

[acknak]

Try this one:

[powerline]

Thank you very much! You saved my life.

[fustbariclation]

I wish I'd seen this today before I fixed it myself, it'd saved a fair bit of anguish and time. I was even tempted by a site that charge $36 to fix it - a scam, fortunately, they claimed to demonstrate the fix, but didn't. I wonder how many desperate people are caught by it.

I didn't delete the lines, I fixed them, which seemed a better solution. The error is:

Code: Select all   Expand viewCollapse view

<office:automatic-styles>
<style:style office:name="__Annotation__7746_212893301111111111111111111" office:name="__Annotation__8899_234553301111111111111111111" style:name="Table1" style:family="table">
<style:table-properties style:width="15.032cm" fo:margin-left="-0.191cm" fo:margin-top="0cm" fo:margin-bottom="0cm" table:align="left" style:writing-mode="lr-tb"/> </style:style>

There's a duplicate annotation - one with the number starting 7746 and the other 8899. You need to replace this with:

Code: Select all   Expand viewCollapse view

<office:automatic-styles>
<style:style  office:name="__Annotation__8899_234553301111111111111111111" style:name="Table1" style:family="table">
<style:table-properties style:width="15.032cm" fo:margin-left="-0.191cm" fo:margin-top="0cm" fo:margin-bottom="0cm" table:align="left" style:writing-mode="lr-tb"/> </style:style>
<style:style office:name="__Annotation__7746_212893301111111111111111111" style:name="Table1" style:family="table">
<style:table-properties style:width="15.032cm" fo:margin-left="-0.191cm" fo:margin-top="0cm" fo:margin-bottom="0cm" table:align="left" style:writing-mode="lr-tb"/> </style:style>

Then, once you zip it up again, you'll have a working .odt file again.

There could be a number of duplicate annotation styles - I had about five.

When I'd fixed it, I reproduced the error very easily by simply saving the file and trying to re-open it - it had added a new office_name annotation in the wrong place.

It's odd that the error is still in openoffice - this thread seems quite old. It should be fairly easy to fix. I suppose it doesn't cause too many problems because not that many mess about with annotations.

[acknak]

... There's a duplicate annotation - one with the number ...

Are you sure? It is an error to have two values for the same attribute (two office:name=...) but as far as I can see, the core problem is that the style definition (style:style) does not normally use office:name at all. I believe both office:name attributes are superfluous in this content.

If you remove any office:name attributes that appear within a style:style element, the file will load again.

The fixed item will look like this:

<style:style style:name="Table1" style:family="table"><style:table-properties .../></style:style>

The office:name="__Annotation__ ..." attributes are used elsewhere in the file, apparently to provide a unique ID for comments later in the file.

How do the extra comment IDs end up here? I'm guessing it has something to do with the new "comment attached to a range of text" feature because this problem started to show up only after that feature was added. At least that's been my experience with it.

I don't see any issue open for this problem; I haven't tried to report it because I don't know how to reproduce it consistently. If you have a document that consistently triggers the problem when you save it, then that could be a good test case to include with a bug report.

[Stormychick]

I've tried to follow the steps to recover my document and it's still not working and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. If someone could try to help me out with it. I'd greatly appreciate it. Attached is the file

[acknak]

I've tried to follow the steps to recover my document and it's still not working ...

Sorry, your file contains nothing but zeroes. There's no way to recover anything from that.

[fustbariclation]

I don't see any issue open for this problem; I haven't tried to report it because I don't know how to reproduce it consistently. If you have a document that consistently triggers the problem when you save it, then that could be a good test case to include with a bug report.

Good point, thank you for letting me know. I'll submit the bug.

[luke holmes]

OK, I have a friend who has lost some very important school work and needs it urgently (by next Monday) I don't know if anything can be done to recover it, the document was originally created in an old version of open office then was edited in the latest version several times, the last time it was edited she was using word 2013 on a school computer, apparently the program crashed and when she tried to reopen the document this is what she got, iv tried everything I can but id really appreciate it if anyone could do anything, thanks!
side note, iv just noticed that the file size seems far to small for the document which should be 20 pages and it says it was created on the 12th of march when I know it was created far before. when the file was corrupted another file appeared with it which I will also upload.
Thanks again to anyone who can help!

[luke holmes]

Here is the file which was created along with the corrupted document, its original file extension was .acl however i could not upload a document with that extension.

[acknak]

OK, I have a friend who has lost some very important school work and needs it urgently ...

Sorry, I don't think there's much to be done with the file. It seems that somehow the document structure is intact (I can File > Open ... the file) but the text itself is corrupted: what I get when the file is opened is mostly junk.

Anyway, I cleaned up the bulk of the junk characters; there's a lot less than 20 pages but maybe it helps a bit.

[luke holmes]

Ok, thanks, I thought that it might not be recoverable as the document opens fine but has loads missing, thanks anyway anything usable is better than nothing.

[Malkav]

Greetings!

I have also managed to currupt my .odt file while saving. This was done while writing and saving my bachelor thesis on an external HD and then (presumably) disconnecting the drive a bit too quickly. Afterwards 24 pages of my thesis turned into a few lines of random characters. I immediately realized my own stupidity in keeping the main file on a removable drive and not having a bunch of up-to-date copies and backups (the newest version that I had saved elsewhere lacks the last two months of work).
Having checked the backup and temp directories (empty), tried to open the file as an archive (doesn't work) and running Recuva (no luck), I have already come to terms with the idea that I will just have to rewrite the missing parts and call it a (painful) lesson learned.

But if anybody else who is more experienced is willing to give it a try as well, then I would be most grateful.

[acknak]

Sorry, I don't see anything in there that I know how to recover.

[John_Ha]

You can try to recover some of the now deleted temporary files with Using RECUVA to recover Writer temporary files Don't switch off the PC, do it as soon as possible - the more you use the PC the more likely the files will be overwritten.

These give some background information:

Using 7-ZIP

Inside an odt file

Hints on how to prevent it happening

Another on RECUVA

[GetInterviews]

Howdy Friends,

I am the client of open office essayist programming from long time, yet time I am confronting that my entire ODT document degenerate and harm because of infection contamination and don't be think about any product so that, I could illuminate such inquiry myself "how to repair of open office author degenerate (.odt) record" in a flash. In the event that any individual thinks about ODT debasement issues furthermore utilized a great capable programming for repairing ODT documents so impart to me their application experience.

Thanks

[lmml]

Hi I have been trying to fix my document with all of your advices for almost 5 hours, and still I am not able to fix it. Acknak, would it it be possible that you can help me? I am quite desperate!
Thank you so much in advance.
Lucia

[John_Ha]

You would need to upload the .odt file here (128 kB max) or at a file share site like mediafire (if bigger than 128kB). If the file is confidential, let me know and I will send you my email ID for you to send it to me.

[lmml]

John,
Thank you so much for your help but acknak has already helped me.
Thanks anyway!
Have a nice day!
Lucia

[simo run]

Hi my son has been working on his lab report and has just got file corrupted message and cannot access it
any help would be very gratefully accepted
here is the file

[John_Ha]

Welcome to the forum.

I am sorry to say that there is nothing in the file and all data has been lost. You could try to recover some of the temporary files which Writer wrote while the file was being edited - see Using RECUVA to recover Writer temporary files.

These may also be useful:

Using 7-ZIP

Inside an odt file

Hints on how to prevent it happening

Another on RECUVA

[AnjaBolette]

Hi there, can somebody please see if they can fix my Odt. file. The system shut down, and I have lost an important part of my thesis. I am heartbroken...
I am not able to fix much on a computer...yes you can call me blond!

[acknak]

So sorry, it's all zeroes. No recoverable data there.

[John_Ha]

Anja

All is not lost - see the post immediately above yours for recovering now deleted temporary files - you could get a substantial amount back.

Check out Dropbox. It creates a folder on your PC called Dropbox. Anything you put into that folder, or any folder below it, is copied to and stored on the Dropbox server - I think you can even go back through previous versions of your files. I would create a folder called ...\Dropbox\Thesis and put all my thesis stuff there - instant, transparent backup (as long as you can recover previous versions of files). The limit is 2GB.

For something as important as a thesis, I would put everything in a folder called Thesis. Every 24 hours or so I would take a copy of the folder and save it with the dat as, for example, 2015-04-08 Thesis. That way you can definitely go back tyo create the files as they were on any particular day. It helps al lot if you zip the folder so the files are in a ZIP file - it prevents you mistakenly editing a previous version of a file instead of the latest version!

I would also copy everything to a USB stick.

[kbhmorten]

Hi Everybody - especially acknak.

Hope you can help me with this file (Final assigment for ICU nurse). Story is:

My girlfriend has this brought this file for printing at hospital (one and only copy). There they only had an word 2003 so they just changed ending from .odt to doc. She said they could open it there.

Now everything is lost, showing crazy signs. Hope you can help me recover.. Have tried renaming it back to .odt and opening with WinRar and looking at source code superficially.
Now i have 3 copies of the same file i will submit for help.

Please help...! File too big for submitting..

http://www.filedropper.com/icu

[John_Ha]

I am sorry to tell you that all the data in the .odt file, and in the two .doc files is corrupted. In the .odt file, the formatting stuff is garbled beyond recognition and there is no body text (unzip the .odt, see content.xml); whereas the two .doc files contain mainly null characters (unzip the .doc, see WordDocument).

If she is lucky, she may be able to retrieve some of the temporary files which Writer wrote while the file was being edited, but which Writer deleted when it closed - see Using RECUVA to recover Writer temporary files. The recovery process is based on her saving as .odt files - if she saved as .doc files, I think the process is similar but slightly diffeent.

VERY IMPORTANT: Was she saving as .odt file? Or was she saving as a .doc file?

These may also be useful:

Using 7-ZIP

Inside an odt file

Hints on how to prevent it happening

Another on RECUVA

[RoryOF]

As John_Ha says. The content of the file is not merely garbled, but actually overwritten with repetitive formatting information (400+ copies of this), so that there is no information to retrieve.

[John_Ha]

There they only had an word 2003 so they just changed ending from .odt to doc. She said they could open it there.

Changing the qualifier from .odt to .doc does nothing useful because the internal format of .odt and .doc files is completely and totally different. However, it should not have affected the file as MS Word should not have been able to open it.

An analogy is unwrapping the label from a tin of tomatoes, and putting the label on a tin of carrots. It's still got carrots inside it, irrespective of what the label says!

[RoryOF]

Is there not a copy on the original computer, which was copied to a USB stick for transfer to the hospital for printing? Or was that original file moved (as opposed to being copied) to the USB stck?