Important lost information in cells

[mptbowl59]

Hi there This is my first time here. I am not pc eloquent so make it simple (very simple), and if you have a solution make it step by step replies if you would.
I'm in some trouble here with my income/expenditure accounts which I did use in microsoft excel on my last computer. I transferred all the accounts to a new computer which was using open office (both incidentally are using Win 7 professional) and also made copies to an external hard drive before I deleted the accounts from the old pc.
Just before I was about to do my accounts for year the 18-19 I decided to check my accounts for the previous year so that I could get the last figures to enter into the new year only to find that they had gone. Furthermore not only the 17-18 accounts but the 16-17 accounts had also gone which would have been embarrassing if the inland revenue had suddenly asked for them. When I saved the latest years I seem to remember saving them in current format to begin with and then saved them in ODF later on after changing some of the details (can't remember why I did that and no I wasn't cooking the books), . The basic format in the spread sheet is still there ie costs, how much (words?) etc as headings but the cell amounts (numbers?) are all gone, by the way the cells are formatted to do certain calculations (=sum ( blahdy+ blah) ) which are still there as well. All the previous years prior to 2016 are ok
Either I did my books and something has gone awry or I am going completely bonkers and never did the accounts in the first place however the totals of those calculations are in my hard copy paper tax returns. How did I get to these figures if I hadn't entered them in my spreadsheet accounts.

So my question is what has happened to the figures in the cells and can I retrieve them?

I have been down the "C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\OpenOffice.org\user\backup" road and got no where.
So I'm looking for a way out of trawling through and re-entering my accounts manually and coming to the same totals that are on my tax returns

I look forward to any help
kind regards
Michael

[RusselB]

Welcome to the Forums.
What are you seeing where you are expecting figures? Are you seeing text/words, particularly where you have formulas? If so, the you have the Show Formulas option under OpenOffice Calc -> Calc checked.
Are you seeing ### in those cells? if so, then your column widths are not wide enough. Use your mouse to select the border to the right of the cell and drag it until you can read the numbers.
Are you seeing more than 3 # symbols. This is an indication that your file has been corrupted and is (probably) unrecoverable.
Those are the options I can think of quickly, but until I know what it is you are seeing, I'm guessing.

[mptbowl59]

Welcome to the Forums.
What are you seeing where you are expecting figures? Are you seeing text/words, particularly where you have formulas? If so, the you have the Show Formulas option under OpenOffice Calc -> Calc checked.
Are you seeing ### in those cells? if so, then your column widths are not wide enough. Use your mouse to select the border to the right of the cell and drag it until you can read the numbers.
Are you seeing more than 3 # symbols. This is an indication that your file has been corrupted and is (probably) unrecoverable.
Those are the options I can think of quickly, but until I know what it is you are seeing, I'm guessing.

Hi RusselB
Thankyou for your reply
I have decided to just re-enter all the figures. Basically I have spreadsheets that have been designed with different headings, income, expenses, capital etc and formulas adding and subtracting to give final totals for the inland revenue. So when I come to do my accounts I just have to enter the figures (in this case are missing, no ### or anything) and the formulas work everything out. It seems to me that something has happened when I transferred my accounts to a new computer and changing from excel to open office. I have excepted the fact that I could spend a lot more time working it out than just doing them again. I'm not a big concern just self employed so it's fairly straight forward. Heh ho there you go. Thanks again.
kind regards Michael