Can't open document

[Staryday]

Hello, I am absolutely panicking. I've been working on a document for days, it's 35 pages of writing. I closed my laptop with the document open and when I came back to it an hour later, my computer had shut itself down. When I opened Open Office again, it asked me for a username and to register. I did that but when I tried to open my file, it won't!! It pops up with the message box ASCII Filter Options. No matter what I do, the document opens with a bunch of ### instead of writing. As far as I can tell, it's only this document that's been damaged.

Please tell me there's something I can do. This was a new document so I hadn't backed it up yet. I will seriously cry if I loose 35 pages of writing.

Thank you.

Edit: I forgot to add, when I attempt to open the file it says "Document file Soulmates.odt is locked for editing by: Unknown User" followed by "Open-Read Only" "Open Copy" or "Cancel". Neither button works. Everything gives me a document filled with ###.

[RoryOF]

A file that opens as ### is damaged - possibly because of over-hasty power off of the computer before the internal buffers in the hard drive had written to disk.

You may be able to recover a previous version of the file - see [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete AOO temporary files for detailed instructions on how to

a) use Previous Versions (W7 and later) to recover previous versions of the file ;

b) recover your file as it was when you last opened or saved it, or as it was when it was last saved with AutoRecovery;

c) find previous versions of the file in the folder it is located in, but which have since been deleted;

d) un-delete the temporary files AOO wrote while you were editing the file, and then deleted. This will recover your file as it was when you last opened or you last saved it.

Experience shows that you should not waste any time with y our existing file - it will have no usable content. Concentrate on the recovery methods outlined in the tutorial.

[Staryday]

Thank you, I will read this over carefully and try it.

[Zizi64]

Hello, I am absolutely panicking. I've been working on a document for days, it's 35 pages of writing. I closed my laptop with the document open and when I came back to it an hour later, my computer had shut itself down.

A tip for the future:
Always create more than one backup copy of your important documents
https://extensions.libreoffice.org/exte ... amp-backup