Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

i am devastated open office ate my manuscript it opens but now there is just symbols . I am super upset it is months of work gone .

Hi and welcome to the forum!

See: [Tutorial] The Dreaded Pound Signs: file reduced to ####.
Good luck. I hope you had backups.

no i ned help hoping some one can fix the file for me

no i ned help hoping some one can fix the file for me

Then, please upload your file here. We will examine it. But - in my opinion - there is not any hope...


Suggestions for the future work:
- Change to LibreOffice
- Always create more than one backup copies of your important documents.

Usually such a problem is caused by over-hasty user closedown of a computer or shutting a laptop lid before the drive has finished writing.

I suggest you download an undelete utility and run it on your hard disk as soon as possible. PhotoRec might be a suitable application; there are others.

If your file is full of #### characters there is no hope for the file - there is no user data in it. See Why is my Writer file full of ##### (nulls)?

tygertyger wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 6:56 am ... it is months of work gone.

I can never understand why people don't backup important work. It would be a matter of a few seconds to get the file from a backup.

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 (is there something similar on MacOS and Linux?);

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) find any temporary files AOO wrote while you were editing the file but which have not yet been deleted;

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

If you cannot follow the instructions ask someone with more PC skills to help you. Act quickly - the longer you wait the more likely any deleted temporary files are to be overwritten and therefore lost.

Unlike the windows version I never found a backup option and since I am disabled and live on very little a month open office was my only option to work with- and yes it is full of the hash tags .Thank you for your initial snark though sure made me feel even better about all this!

Zizi64 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 7:34 am

no i ned help hoping some one can fix the file for me

Then, please upload your file here. We will examine it. But - in my opinion - there is not any hope...


Suggestions for the future work:
- Change to LibreOffice
- Always create more than one backup copies of your important documents.

yeah I just found out it is dead I will look into libre if it is more stable -

Before doing anything else, run an undelete utility; you might not recover all, but there is a good chance you will recover some of your document.

Some journaling file systems and cloud storage services does file versioning. Alas, Apple's file system and iCloud seem to depend on the client app to request "new version", judging from what it says on Apple's support pages. May still be worth looking into.

tygertyger wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 2:52 pm Thank you for your initial snark

If you actually read what I said you will find it was not a snark, nor even about you. It was about my not understanding people who don't backup important work.

An undelete utility will search the drive for a now deleted working copy. The sooner this is done, the better the chance of a successful or a partial recovery.

tygertyger wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 6:56 am I am super upset it is months of work gone.

tygertyger wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 2:52 pm Unlike the windows version I never found a backup option …

Mac FAQ Q23: How do I backup OpenOffice files on my Mac?
Mac FAQ Q24: How do I restore OpenOffice files from backups?

John_Ha wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 12:48 pm See [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete AOO temporary files for detailed instructions …

If your machine has a solid state disk (SSD), recovery of deleted files is unlikely because the SSD sets that storage to zeros as soon as the file is deleted, thus there is nothing to recover except zeros. Use backups to ensure that you can restore your files if they become damaged.

tygertyger wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 7:16 am no i ned help hoping some one can fix the file for me

Sometimes it does not work like this because actions have to be made on your machine.
That's what is explained in the various topics linked.