Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Hi all.

I'm running Windows 7 with open office Vn4.1.7.

A power cut has caused an file opening issue on a spreadsheet.

My file is named: Matchbox-75 car's - March 2019.xls

When trying to open I get the following window, I've tried changing a few settings but none seem to make any difference to pressing OK, I just get a blank sheet, with only 1 tab.

Any help in resolving appreciated.

Mark Wallis.
England

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Few chances to recover anything. See: [Tutorial] The Dreaded Pound Signs: file reduced to ####. Good luck. I hope you had backups.
Note: saving in .xls further reduce the chances since it's a binary format. Better use .ods.

I had back-up from star of January but had made a few updates since. I was unaware of the OO back-up option so now have it enabled.

What is the main difference between XLS & ODS format?...as all data on a pc is binary, in my power-loss circumstance I'm curious to any difference that may have made?

Mark.

matchbox_man wrote:What is the main difference between XLS & ODS format?

See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for a description of differences and for why you should always work in, and save Writer files as .odt, Calc files as .ods, Impress files as .odp etc.

matchbox_man wrote:in my power-loss circumstance I'm curious to any difference that may have made?

AOO handles .doc/.xls/.ppt files differently from .odt/.ods/.odp files.

The MS .doc/.xls/.ppt formats are effectively the contents of the PC memory zipped into a file.

The ODF .odt/.ods/.odp formats are structured XML files zipped into a file.

When AOO opens an MS file it does not create a temp file. When AOO opens an ODF file (or a .docx/.xlsx etc file) AOO creates a temporary file and this temporary file can often be recovered if the original file is corrupted.

See [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete AOO temporary files for more information.

For the technical difference refer to [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files
ods is the native spreadsheet format of your application. You should always store your data in the native format of whatever application you are using. The native format guarantees that every feature you are using can be stored in the document. In this case it might have been the feature which restores crashed documents flawlessly.
odt, ods, odp, odg, odb, odf are your native document formats for text, spreadsheet, presentation, graphic, database and formulas. The generic term is Open Document Format (ODF) which is an international standard for documents. Contrary to Microsoft's "standards", this one is free and supported by dozends of applications without all the trouble and pain that are imposed by Microsoft formats. Microsoft's business model depends on its documents, protocols, interfaces not being compatible with anything or anybody except for tactical reasons or when inevitable. The ODF standard has been invented to break this. Storing for your own work in MS document formats undermines the efforts of hundreds of developers in various projects.

Thanks for replies peops.

Why is the shown 'Text Import' window appearing, what's that about?

Mark.

matchbox_man wrote:Why is the shown 'Text Import' window appearing, what's that about?

Upload the file showing the problem so a precise reason can be given.

Press POSTREPLY and click the Upload attachment tab below where you type (128 kB max); or use a file share site, Dropbox or Google Drive for a larger file.

The text import window normally means OpenOffice can't understand the file, which is often an indication that it is badly damaged. In the case of Calc it may indicate that the file has been Saved in a text format (often .csv)

Recipe for data loss:
MS Windows(7)
No backup strategy
Foreign binary file format
Database data on sheets

The same thing has just happened to me ... power cut off .. tried to open an XLS file I was editing in OpenOffice... and
all I got was the TEXT IMPORT window with 12 column headings all saying STANDARD and most of them filled out with random 8-digit series of letters & numbers.
I am really, really upset if I have lost my file. This is historical payment data, monthly, with interest charges, over a 12 year period....
I am hopeful, but it doesn't sound very good from what I am reading above.... Is this maybe a new problem that is just beginning to surface? If so, maybe OpenOffice techs can work some miracles???????

This is not a new problem and there is nothing the developers can do as they have no way of controlling the power to your computer.
Read the tutorials previously posted and try the options given asap. The longer you wait, the better the chances of losing your data.

You must NEVER EVER store your work in any file format other than the native file format of the application you are using. xls is NOT a native file format when working with OpenOffice. xls is not even a standard.
I can not understand why Windows users do not run backups. There are tons of more or less sophisticated backup applications for MS Windows which store all of your work, all of your settings, all of your credentials and identities, not only office documents.