Text files now in symbols and jibberish

[Middie]

I had been using W7 with older versions of Open Office without problems for quite some time. I switched to W10 last year and still was able to open and amend the documents in Open Office. I just downloaded Open Office 4.1.3 this weekend. Somehow, all my word processing documents are now jibberish as in the sample below:
ÿWPC›##############Æw######ðu[s㫎Ƭ«Ž‰=Ð#ôtÜk<6cœ#ºÄ¨�ñfÅ”u#s_jzæNEl#ãaÎJvx"#E#`Q•û#Z5É^Ax�

I tried changing the character set in the ASCII filter options but got something similar
 WPC¢#### ##########╞w######≡u[sπ½À╞¼½Àë=╨#⌠t▄k<6c£#║─Îɱf┼Ëu#s_jzµNEl#πa╬Jvx"#E#`QÏ√#Z5╔^Ax‗

When I examined the properties of the files, they are all listed as "OpenOffice.org XML 1.0 Text Document" so I tried changing the file extention but that didn't help.

I have 2 questions. What is causing this (If I did something wrong I need to know what it is so as not to repeat it) and is there any way I can get the proper text back?. The files are numerous and lengthy and would be extremely arduous to retype. Any help that anyone could give would be most appreciated. Thank you. Middie

[Bill]

What was the extension before and after you changed it? I believe that "OpenOffice.org XML 1.0 Text Document" is incomplete. I expect a file name extension after the word "Document".

[robleyd]

Hi, and welcome to the community forum.

ÿWPC

Almost certainly a WordPerfect file with that file signature. I'd guess that you have been using a very old OpenOffice, prior to 3.4.1 as WordPerfect import filters were removed from OpenOffice in 3.4.1. See this post for a little more information.