ASCII Filter Options while opening doc file

[padfoot007]

Hey guys...

I have never had an issue opening doc files in open office. And this is only happening to one file i saved couple days back. Other doc files are opening perfectly under OpenOffice 3.2 under Ubuntu 10.04LTS.

Also if I select the default ascii filtering the file opens with random characters....nothing legible.
I get default ASCII filtering as:

Character set: Unicode (UTF-8)
Default fonts: Times New Roman
Language: English (India)
Paragraph break: LF

Can someone help me out?

[Hagar Delest]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Can you upload the file (see How to attach a document here)?

Do you confirm you have saved in .doc format? Better work in native ODF and then export when you're done.

[floris v]

Here's a list of topics on the same problem: search:ascii options.

I'm afraid that your file is corrupt.

[TheGurkha]

If you can, upload it anyway, and we'll take a look.

But I agree - it sounds like it has become corrupt. When this happsn with .doc files, usually there is nothing that can be done.

As Hagar says, it is always safer to work in the native OOo formats (.odt and .ods etc) and then use Save As to save a copy in .doc or .xls format if you need to distribute it in MS Office formats. But always then go back to the native OOo version to continue working. If the people you are sending to do not need to edit the files then it is best to send them a PDF as then no matter what office suite they use it will be possible for them to read and print the files.

[padfoot007]

Actually initially this file was saved under Microsoft office 2003 while I was at Office. Once I got home I put my flash drive in and tried to open this file under open office writer but it wouldn't open....

Anyways here is the file....there isn't much in it either ways so if you guys can figure out how to get it to open legibly...do let me know and if not its not a big deal

http://www.mediafire.com/?oaaknmxn0l2

[floris v]

The file was all gibberish.
You saved it to your hard disk at your office, I presume? If you work from and save to removable drives there's always a risk of data loss, quite apart from the extra time it takes to work with them.

[thomasjk]

Don't forget to turn on Tools-->Options--->Load\Save--->General "Always Create backup copy" for the future. Saves a copy of your file with fiename.bak in the backup folder in the the user profile.

[katia millington]

Hi, I've got the same problem, the backup folder is empty and I get the same pop up window for the ASCII filter. However my file was saved in .odt format. Could anyone help me out with this, I was half-way through a university essay and the power died! The file is too large to upload on the forum. Any help will be really really appreciated! I don't care if the formatting is all out as long as I can recover most of the text.

http://www.mediafire.com/?nwltyhdmmzn

[TheGurkha]

Every byte within that file is a hex zero byte 0x00. Sorry - it's gone.

You could try checking the backup folder in your user profile:[Tutorial] The OOo user profile.

[katia millington]

Ok, thanks anyway! Now I know to set Open Office to automatically backup all files! Learn the hard way!

[padfoot007]

thanks anyways for your help

[flash5742]

Can someone tell me if this file can be converted back.

Thanks!

[acknak]

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

[mblack3]

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i was working on a paper all night...
i saved and restarted my comp cause of some songbird issues
came back and it was 0-bytes


PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HELP!

[RoryOF]

If it is zero bytes there is nothing there. Look for a tmp or a bak file in your User Profile folder, move it elsewhere and rename to odt, if that was the format you were working in, else to doc.

[Hagar Delest]

Check the temporary folder of the system (see in OOo Tools>Options>OOo>Paths). If there are folders like sgmlf.tmp with a file having the same name inside, make a copy of that file, rename it in .odt and cross your fingers.

Else, nothing to do I fear.

[dango]

same thig happens to me, I can not open a file after I installed oo. I opened it in word instantly but I want to be able to use only oo

[RoryOF]

You need to change the file associations so that your system knows to use OOo to open the files.
A utility to do this is given in thread
http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/ ... =7&t=34172

[dango]

thank you, but it is not working. some doc files I can open, others I can't open.
and when I right click on the icon of the file I want to open, appears 2 times open office writer.exe
I tried to uninstall 3 times oo , finnaly I installed oo 3.3 and I got the same result. I mention again that some files .doc I can open and other no

[dango]

when I am trying to use ooo asociator from the link above it gives me error like:
LAPTOPDELL: Error 0x5 setting association for .doc
LAPTOPDELL: Error 0x5 setting association for .dot
and in the document that it opens, writer in ascii filter asks me first about the
character set which I choose Unicode UTF-8 because I found in the opened doc in the first row

and then the page I open looks like that:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<?mso-application progid="Word.Document"?>
<w:wordDocument xmlns:w="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2003/wordml" xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:w10="urn:schemas-microsoft-comword" xmlns:sl="http://schemas.microsoft.com/schemaLibrary/2003/core" xmlns:aml="http://schemas.microsoft.com/aml/2001/core" xmlns:wx="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2003/auxHint" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-comoffice" xmlns:dt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882" xmlns:wsp="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/wor ... wordml/sp2" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-comsmarttags" w:macrosPresent="no" w:embeddedObjPresent="no" w:ocxPresent="no" xml:space="preserve"><w:ignoreElements w:val="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/wor ... artTagType o:namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-comsmarttags" o:name="place"/><o:SmartTagType o:namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-comsmarttags"

[Bill]

when I am trying to use ooo asociator from the link above it gives me error like:
LAPTOPDELL: Error 0x5 setting association for .doc
LAPTOPDELL: Error 0x5 setting association for .dot

OOo Associator didn't work on Vista or Windows 7 the only time I tried it. Use Start > Default Programs to change the file associations.

Re: Opening MS Word email attachments in OOo

[cuulblu]

This has happened to me with multiple documents that have been saved and previously opened many times.

I've never had this problem with MS office. It seems the open source software has development issues.

I'm not going to save to .odt then convert to .doc every time I open a document. I save in .doc so in the event of my death people who use MS office can easily open my documents for legal reasons.

Looks like it's time to go back to MS office and leave the freebies to the amateurs.

[cuulblu]

I have now had this happen with multiple files that have been saved and opened previously. Everything I'm reading here, people are saying when this happens the files are corrupt!

I have to disagree. I have no clue what's happening, but it's a glitch with OpenOffice.

You want to know how I can prove this? Because the supposedly corrupt files will open with MS Office!!!!

Fix your software people. It's junk. Free, but still junk!

[Lupp]

Fix your software people. It's junk. Free, but still junk!

Sorry. That's nonsense. Millions of user can tell about satisfyining experience. However, AOO is developing and bug-fixing very slowly nowadays. Most developing power concerning free and opensource software in the 'Office' range basing on former StarOffice/OpenOffice.org has moved to LibreOffice for which bugfix releases are publihed very frequently, and second level versions (also containing new features or major rework) twice a year. You may try it. On Win you can start with a PortableApps package (.paf.exe) using its self-extractor targetting to any empty folder. No install needed!

Concerning the current complaint: Nobody can do any research or make reasonable suggestions without access to the file. If it contains confidential information, you may attach it to a PM (PersonalMessage) to me or to some other contributor here you trust more.

BTW: Saving to alien file formats generally is a bad idea - and will always be. A commercial competitor selling licenses can never accept full compatibility with free and opensource software. Incompatibility is the raison d'etre of his business.

[cuulblu]

It still goes back to many responses saying under these circumstances the file is corrupt. OpenOffice will not open many files now on my PC. However they will open in MS Office. So it's not possible the files are corrupt!

Someone needs to post a reply that offers a fix for the problem, not simply writing it off as the files are corrupt.

[Lupp]

You won't get anywhere if you don't READ the replies on your posts and take them seriously. I don't know everything. However, I'm not an idiot but an experienced user of many components of Apache OpenOffice and of LibreOffice as well.

(No further replies by me on equally silly posts by you here.)

[John_Ha]

Someone needs to post a reply that offers a fix for the problem

You have quite a sense of entitlement, don't you?

It still goes back to many responses saying under these circumstances the file is corrupt.

A .odt file which opens and offers the ASCII filter option is corrupt. That is a fact.

Of course, if it is not a .odt file, and is a .txt file which has been renamed with a .odt qualifier, then it is not a valid .odt file and it will open with the ASCII filter.

[cuulblu]

And now I see an attitude here that could be the source of the problem. I'm not entitled. But I do expect software to work.

I save all files as .doc. That way in the event someone needs access to my files it should open in what is the most commonly found software on PC's. Namely MS Word. The files I am referring to have worked for some time. More than two years with no problems opening.

I get the pop up asking for ASCII filter options to be entered when attempting to open these files. If I close the box the file will not open in OpenOffice. If I input filter options and click ok, the file shows up as corrupt.

But if I open these same files in MS Word, the files open properly, are editable, savable, view and print properly.

Therefore there has to be an unaddressed issue with OpenOffice.

But if feeling software should work properly means to you that I am entitled, well you are entitled to your opinion.

I am reading the replies. But starting off with accusatory statements nullifies most of the post, particularly if no new relevant data is presented that might fix the problem.

I have uninstalled OpenOffice from my machine as in it's current state it was useless. I have installed LibreOffice. It currently works as expected. I will not bother responding to any more accusatory responses in this thread. Small minds fall back to accusation and critical responses to address issues when they don't know how to fix them.

[robleyd]

Can you provide a sample file that exhibits the problem?

[Forum] How to attach a document here Note maximum file size is 128K. If your file is larger, use a file sharing site such as Mediafire and post the link here. The link also contains information on how to anonymise your document if it contains confidential information.

[RoryOF]

Have the files in question been moved from another computer or a different hard drive or USB device?