[Dropped] Opening an old file shows ASCII Filter Options dialog

[WADitz]

Hello all....

Been using Open Office for about 15-20 years and really appreciate how easy it is to save files for (home use) and then save as a file in the Microsoft format (for use at work)

I was looking for an old file I create for our phone and address this but after I found it I noticed the icon file looked different that the icon that normally is associate with a filed save in Open Office format...

Open office will not open this file ... any suggestions very much appreciated..

If I put the file on the desktop and double click on it I get photo 2

#2a.jpg (20.92 KiB) Viewed 6580 times

thanks... Warren

I will attach the icons for your review....

#1.jpg (23.03 KiB) Viewed 6680 times

Edit: Changed subject, was Opening an old file  Make your post understandable by others  -- MrProgrammer, forum moderator

[RoryOF]

What is the extension of your file (the three/four letters after the name)?

[RoryOF]

Also: has this file been moved from an older computer to your current computer?

[Mountaineer]

ASCII-Filter is usually a sign for a file of unknown type for OpenOffice, if it is not really a text.

If you assume this was an .odt/odc/odb-File, you can try to copy the file to name.zip and try, if Tools for zip-Files can recover anything.

If this doesn't give results my next step would be a hex-editor to check the beginning of the file. Maybe just google the first 10 Bytes together with filetype or post s screenshot here.

It intrigues me why MacOs would show this as "exec"

[Zizi64]

Can you upload/share a small sample file here?

[John_Ha]

ASCII Filter usually means the file is flat ASCII text and not a valid .odt file.

Press OK in the ASCII Filter box - that will open it. I suspect it is full of #####. See Why is my Writer file full of #####?

On Windows I could also open it with Notepad but I don't know what the equivalent simple editor on MacOS is.

[Bill]

I was looking for an old file I create for our phone and address this but after I found it I noticed the icon file looked different that the icon that normally is associate with a filed save in Open Office format...

If the icon of this one file is different, then the file is not in "Open Office format". The pictures posted don't show the file name extension, so there's no way for anyone to guess the format of the file.

[MrProgrammer]

any suggestions very much appreciated

It's unlikely you're going to be able to open that file. Perhaps you can restore it from a backup. If you have no backup, the file you've shown us is probably of no value.
Q23: How do I backup OpenOffice files on my Mac?
Q24: How do I restore OpenOffice files from backups?

I will attach the icons for your review....

You are more likely to get your problem analyzed if you attach a document demonstrating the difficulty (remove confidential information then use Post Reply, not Quick Reply). I probably cannot help further unless you attach. The #1.jpg picture is worthless, like taking a picture of your car to a mechanic and asking why it won't start. If the forum won't allow you to attach your New Phone List file, create a ZIP file and attach that.
Q51: How do I create a ZIP file so I can upload it to the forum?

It intrigues me why MacOs would show this as "exec"

MacOS uses exec when it has no idea what the content is. For example, if files were transferred from Windows to MacOS and New Phone List is actually a Windows link to the document (thus the actual file name is New Phone List.lnk this will be shown as exec since Microsnot links are meaningless on MacOS.

I don't know what the equivalent simple editor on MacOS is.

TextEdit is somewhat like Notepad and Wordpad. The command line interface offers many low-level tools to examine file contents: file, cat, hexdump, etc.

The pictures posted don't show the file name extension, so there's no way for anyone to guess the format of the file.

The extension is critical to a problem diagnosis. WADitz should enable display of file extensions and update this topic.
Q52: How do I display file extensions so I see MyDoc.odt instead of MyDoc?