[Solved] Writer document will not open

[Anne Mai]

Help needed!
I have work many hours on a document in Open Office and now I can not open it. The document says Format error in under document content.xml on position 2,42005.

Fingers crossed
Anne Mai

[RoryOF]

You either should upload the document to the Forum (upload tab is below submit button on PostReply and FullEditor screens), or if larger than 128 KB, use a file sharing site and post the URL to the Forum.

[Anne Mai]

Ok it comes here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/s1w3hou36xje ... kZxca?dl=0

[Anne Mai]

Really hope you can help. Me mac is MacOS High Sierre 10.13.05

[RoryOF]

Please send me a PM with an email address to which I can send the repaired file.
Please check that its content and formatting are as you require.

[Anne Mai]

thank you so much. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Edit: Email address erased for privacy [RoryOF,Moderator]

[Anne Mai]

I have not received anything?

[RoryOF]

I have sent the repaired file to the email address you posted. Check your email inbox and spam folder.

[John_Ha]

Anne Mai

Has the file been edited by someone using MS Word to add comments and record changes? If so, it may happen again ...

The problem was a repeated Annotation definition which also had what looks like many redundant "111111 ..." which I think is an MS Word bug.

See 10. Exchanging documents for proof reading between AOO and MS Word in [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for an explanation.

[RoryOF]

The repeated Annotation was what I found, but I see no annotation in the repaired file.

[John_Ha]

The repeated Annotation was what I found, but I see no annotation in the repaired file.

Rory

This file is interesting.

1. There were two instances of the Annotation (see image above) in content.xml at the beginning of the file. Deleting one instance fixed the file. Deleting both instances fixed the file. In fact, I think neither should be there - it is the usual "annotation incorrectly inserted into the first style definition corrupts the style definition".

2. No comments were attached to a range of characters so that is not the cause of the problem.

3. I wonder if the problem is caused when a comment is deleted?

Anne Mai - please tell us the history of the file. What happened to the file immediately before you found you could not open it?

[Anne Mai]

I did delete a comment but I also changed some things in the document after that.