ASCII gibberish: file filled with ####

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sdurnil
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Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2023 6:14 am

ASCII gibberish: file filled with ####

Post by sdurnil »

Help! I've been using Open Office successfully for years now, but now I have 2 documents that suddenly opened with a popup for ASCII filter options. When I opened the files, they were both filled with #### - pages of them. The story I had been working on for months appears to be gone. I used Recuva and found the files again. The longer, more important file, is now just 2 lines of gibberish.

Is there any other way to recover my original files, or am I SOL and I have to re-write it all?

Thanks

Susan
Last edited by MrProgrammer on Sat Sep 23, 2023 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Edited topic's subject
Open Office 4.1.5
on Windows 10
JeJe
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Posts: 3132
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2016 2:40 pm

Re: ASCII gibberish

Post by JeJe »

This is familiar problem here. See these past threads for advice:


viewtopic.php?f=74&t=84056

viewtopic.php?t=104523
Windows 10, Openoffice 4.1.11, LibreOffice 7.4.0.3 (x64)
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Zizi64
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Posts: 11505
Joined: Wed May 26, 2010 7:55 am
Location: Budapest, Hungary

Re: ASCII gibberish

Post by Zizi64 »

Susan
_________________________________
Open Office 4.1.5
on Windows 10
Here are some tips for the future work:
  • and never switch off the computer when you edit a file.
  • Never work diretly on a portable media (thumbdrive),
  • and often create backup copies of your importasnt ducument, when you edit them.
Last edited by Zizi64 on Sat Sep 23, 2023 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Tibor Kovacs, Hungary; LO7.5.8/25.8.5.2 /Win7-10-11 x64Prof.
PortableApps: LO3.3.0-25.8.5.2;AOO4.1.14
Please, edit the initial post in the topic: add the word [Solved] at the beginning of the subject line - if your problem has been solved.
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LastUnicorn
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Location: Scotland

Re: ASCII gibberish

Post by LastUnicorn »

LibreOffice is less prone to this kind of thing, you would be well advised to switch. There are several good reasons for doing so, some of which are mentioned here: [Tutorial] Considering a Switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice? Some Useful Information

You should also consider installing and using the extension called TimeStamp Backup. You can get the latest version of that extension from here: http://flowcont.hu/LO_oxt_store/ And some basic information on it here: https://extensions.libreoffice.org/en/e ... amp-backup (though do not download from here as it is not the latest version).
LibreOffice 25.8.4.2 (x64) installed to Windows 11 Pro. 25H2
Apache OpenOffice Portable 4.1.16 [Portable Apps]
For Java I use Adoptium Temurin JRE LTS Releases.
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