OpenOffice 4.1 damages documents!!? I am angry

[writelate]

Dear all,

this is now the 2nd time in this year 2019 that Open Office 4.1 has totally damaged an important document of mine.

when I open the damaged document I get following signs :

####################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################ÿþ<#?#x#m#l# #v#e#r#s#i#o#n#=#"#1#.#0#"# #e#n#c#o#d#i#n#g#=#"#U#T#F#-#1#6#"# #s#t#a#n#d#a#l#o#n#e#=#"#y#e#s#"#?#>#
#
#<#P#a#c#k#a#g#e# #I#g#n#o#r#a#b#l#e#N#a#m#e#s#p#a#c#e#s#=#"#w#i#n#d#o#w#s#b#u#i#l#d#"# #x#m#l#n#s#=#"#h#t#t#p#:#/#/#s#c#h#e#m#a#s#.#m#i#c#r#o#s#o#f#t#.#c#o#m#/#a#p#p#x#/#2#0#1#0#/#m#a#n#i#f#e#s#t#"# #x#m#l#n#s#:#m#2#=#"#h#t#t#p#:#/#/#s#c#h#e#m#a#s#.#m#i#c#r#o#s#o#f#t#.#c#o#m#/#a#p#p#x#/#2#0#1#3#/#m#a#n#i#f#e#s#t#"# #x#m#l#n#s#:#w#i#n#d#o#w#s#b#u#i#l#d#=#"#h#t#t#p#:#/#/#s#c#h#e#m#a#s#.#m#i#c#r#o#s#o#f#t#.#c#o#m#/#d#e#v#e#l#o#p#e#r#/#a#p#p#x#/#2#0#1#3#/#w#i#n#d#o#w#s#b#u#i#l#d#"#>#
#
# #<#I#d#e#n#t#i#t#y# #N#a#m#e#=#"#m#i#c#r#o#s#o#f#t#.#w#i#n#d#o#w#s#c#o#m#m#u#n#i#c#a#t#i#o#n#s#a#p#p#s#"# #P#r#o#c#e#s#s#o#r#A#r#c#h#i#t#e#c#t#u#r#e#=#"#x#6#4#"# #P#u#b#l#i#s#h#e#r#=#"#C#N#=#M#i#c#r#o#s#o#f#t# #C#o#r#p#o#r#a#t#i#o#n#,# #O#=#M#i#c#r#o#s#o#f#t# #C#o#r#p#o#r#a#t#i#o#n#,# #L#=#R#e#d#m#o#n#d#,# #S#=#W#a#s#h#i#n#g#t#o#n#,# #C#=#U#S#"# #V#e#r#s#i#o#n#=#"#1#7#.#5#.#9#6#0#0#.#2#2#0#1#3#"#/#>#

etc.

I get these chaotic signs on 30 pages, because my document is 30 pages long. !

My document was created in 2018 and I used it often , and there was no issue like that before..... But in 2019 already 2 important documents of mine have been damaged that way !!!

It's probably impossible to repair the document and I am afraid Open Office will damage my other documents as well... ! So I have to change the software, I dont see another solution !!!

I am very angry,
Open Office destroys a work of mine that I worked on for months !!!

[RoryOF]

This looks like you have tried to open a Microsoft document which uses a 16 bit character encoding.

What is the three or four letter extension to the file in question?

[John_Ha]

It says as below which is not an AOO document. Just find all the hashes ( # ) and replace them with nothing to read it.

Code: Select all

ÿþ<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16" standalone="yes"?>
<Package IgnorableNamespaces="windowsbuild" 
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/appx/2010/manifest" 
xmlns:m2="http://schemas.microsoft.com/appx/2013/manifest" 
xmlns:windowsbuild="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/appx/2013/windowsbuild">
<Identity Name="microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps" 
ProcessorArchitecture="x64" 
Publisher="CN=Microsoft Corporation, 
O=Microsoft Corporation, L=Redmond, S=Washington, C=US" Version="17.5.9600.22013"/>

It looks like another problem with Microsoft's idiotic policy of suppressing the qualifier for known file types by default.

[AOOisdead]

writelate; have you tried using Libreoffice? Open Office 4.1 has been on Open Office 4.1 because the project is dormant for a few years now. Libreoffice actually has .docx and modern Microsoft Office compatibility. If you're using windows, see if you can find a previous version of the document to restore it. https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/hel ... eted-files
Or try to open the current broken document in Libreoffice. It might not be broken.

And tell everyone you know to stop using Open Office so they don't have the same problems. I wish the project management committee of AOO would...

[John_Ha]

This is not an AOO problem.

It looks like the poster has used AOO to try to open a Microsoft application file - perhaps a Microsoft Paint or similar file. The file could be a Windows 10 package file.

The file is not, and never has been, a .doc file, nor a .docx file, nor a .rtf file, nor a .odt file, nor a .xml file, nor a .txxt file.

The file is not, and never has been, a "text file corrupted by AOO".

The poster's anger is directed at the wrong program and until poster answers the question (s)he has been asked, or uploads the file, no-one can give her/him any further help.

Suggesting LO as a fix will not work.

[Zizi64]

writelate,

can you upload one of the problematic files here? (The file size limit is 128 KiB in this forum.)

[RoryOF]

And whether OpenOffice is responsible or not, which we cannot know until we get some further information from the OP, to have a regularly used and modified important 30 page document with no backups? Tut-tut!

[AOOisdead]

Tut tut indeed. Hopefully he has windows snapshots enabled and can use the previous versions feature.