Yet another ASCII filter issue but no repeating # characters

[jmwood]

My husband saved his work in Libre Office Writer last night (in native file type) as he has been doing for months with no problems. When he tried to open his document, he got the ASCII filter message and then pages of garbled output. I have tried to salvage his work by trying everything I could find in this forum and Linux forums including saving it as a txt file, exporting it as a pdf file, uzipping it and trying to find the text in the xml files, ad nauseam. (All other odt files open without a problem.) I even uninstalled Libre and installed the latest version of OpenOffice, to no avail. Here is an example of the output from one of the 18 pages:

7Çúr▓=D~ì«₧▓#3S│#ó┬##+⌡1#º{ñ2KIºFɃ#Z½#"z&≤╘£#Ç}¡.≈≡AngVεZ5▒▌^╧ ïê/3Ñû¬╓ïïYó#╖YNë╣ⁿ¬*ïA½OÅ&╬)╟#\`SΓ;# #4∙4:å{1X╬▀╧│ú▀;ik#█3ók3åφΘ##ió╕¬F╤Fσ╘âx⌐µö░$╗└╞≤╖Σ:AFux⌐µö░$╗└╞≤╖Σ:AFux⌐µö░$╗└╞≤╖ΣΦô╒44£üδ░:â┌#─║#.ƒ▓#3S│#ó┬##+⌡1#ªß|WB▐qτ#÷è@7─U╪&≤╘£#Ç}¡#■≡AngVεZ5▒▌^╧ ïê/3Ñû¬╓ïïYó#╖YNë╣ⁿ¬*ïA½O╬¬n#É;OLîA9ñ)òB»½╙^w±
T#"╘#2#:∩ºf#K╡#àúä▐ù?'≤ª╙Äï╥âx⌐µö░$╗└╞≤╖Σ:AFux⌐µö░$╗└╞≤╖Σ:AFux⌐µö░$╗└╞≤╖Σ#"íH#╝╜g"£#7≤##-:¿αÿ#√⌡U░$╗└╞≤╖Σ£ñ╠°0÷##⌡X╪B
█#»&≤╘£#Ç}¡.≈≡AngVεZ5▒▌^╧ ïê/3Ñû¬╓ï:AFux⌐µö0╢¥-╞≤╖Σ:AFux⌐µö░$╗└╞≤╖ΣL▓)#ÇPG87┤⌠┘╓r#┘╥^¥Üx⌐µöH╬#->## :AFux⌐µö░$╗└╞≤╖Σ:AFux⌐µö░$╗└╞≤╖Σ:AFux⌐µö░$╗└╞≤╖Σσ╩²Σ▐#5\¢▐₧g-å4*║½αÿ#√⌡U░$╗└╞≤╖Σ£ñ╠°0÷##⌡X╪B
█#»&≤╘£#Ç}¡.≈≡AngVεZ5▒▌^╧ ïê/3Ñû¬╓ï:AFux⌐µö0╢¥-╞≤╖Σ:AFux⌐µö░$╗└╞≤╖ΣK

Looks like Greek to me....
I've attached the offending document; if anyone has any suggestions or knows how to extract his text I would be grateful.
TIA,
Jeannie

[thomasjk]

Alas, 18 pages of gibberish. Was this file ever saved in .doc format?

[jmwood]

Yes, I tried that as well.... still gibberish.

[simpwilson]

I saw something similar happen right after I upgraded to OO 3.3. When I double-clicked on the Open Office icon on the desktop, then clicked spreadsheet and went to 'file' and 'recent documents' the infamous ASCII pop-up window appeared. I clicked OK as well and it turned my spreadsheet into a text document of empty boxes in place of any recognizable characters. I tried downloading OO again and no different when I went to open 'recent documents.' I did have a backup available and made a new copy on my harddrive. I've been able to open it with no problems if I access it through Windows Explorer going to the file it's in, then double-clicking on the document. As long as I stay away from the ASCII pop-up I seem to be okay. . .is it actually some sort of virus attached to OO 3.3?
. . .simpwilson. . .

[TheGurkha]

After a quick and casual inspection, the XML seems to be well formed but it does indeed contain gibberish.

Gibberish in XML