ALL original OpenOffice text files .odt will not open!

[jennufa]

My Grandmother (91) has been working on her bio (shes awesome). She uses an older version of OO likly 3.2 or something of this description. She changed a file name she was working on and saved it and OO unexpectedly closed. She went back to open the file and the ASCII fiter options screen comes up and if she selects OK it is all hashtags.

I have been googling like mad and found that this is a problem and likely the file is unrecoverable? But most posts are 2012. On further investigation she has told me that all original OO files are doing the same (not just one file). Files that were originally created in Microsoft are okay to open in OO.

I am providing support to her over the phone which is a huge challege for a 91 year old and we are separated by oceans so time zones make it even more challenging. She is also on a different version of OO than me and she is on Windows 7 where I am on Windows 8. It is hard to coach the right steps.

I had her send me the file via email and I tried my best on my pc but have the same issue with the hashtags.

Any support would be great to get her documents back.

[thomasjk]

If they are all showing hash tags they are not recoverable. Hopefully she has backups other wise all is lost. See viewtopic.php?f=6&t=17677

[Hagar Delest]

She can check the temporary folder of her 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. If you have not rebooted, you might have those files still there.

There are some operations to be done. You should see if you can install both something to share and take the control of your grandmother's desktop remotely.

Good luck!
She should upgrade to latest AOO 4.0.1.