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Writer has replaced all words with symbols
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:51 pm
by cooper101183
I was working on my essay last night, I saved the file but when I went to open it this morning ACS11 filter options appeared, so I opened the file as read only and all the words were replaced with hashes. Every other document opens up fine except the one I need for my university work. Can anyone please help. I have tried opening the file with Microsoft Word, I did not have back up turned on as I didnt know about it until 15 minutes ago. I have tried renaming the user account but that doesnt work either
Re: URGENT. Writer has replaced all words with symbols
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 3:57 pm
by RoryOF
Look in the temporary folder given under /Tools /Options /OpenOffice.org : Paths. Rename and files with arbitrary names (sgthl.tmp sort of thing) to .odt and try to open them to see do they contain some/all of your lost file.
Re: URGENT. Writer has replaced all words with symbols
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:21 pm
by cooper101183
The temp folder is blank it must have cleared them when I rebooted
Re: URGENT. Writer has replaced all words with symbols
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:23 pm
by cooper101183
I have also tried Kernel repair but that just deletes the symbols and does not restore the words.
Re: URGENT. Writer has replaced all words with symbols
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 6:08 pm
by RoryOF
Rename your damaged .odt file to .zip and try to open it with winzip/7zip. Then look in Content.xml and you may find your unformatted text. But if it doesn't open, that's it!
Re: Writer has replaced all words with symbols
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 10:01 pm
by Hagar Delest
Sadly, quite nothing to do, see:
22 pages term paper replaced with pound signs.
Any power shortage for example? It's a common root cause of such problem.
I hope you've a backup somewhere (have you checked the backup folder of the profile (see
[Tutorial] The User Profile).
You can also try the shadow copies; here are the 2 links usually given by
Bill here:
-
Recover Files with Shadow Copies on Any Version of Windows Vista
-
ShadowExplorer
You should upgrade to latest AOO 3.4.1, it seems there are less reports with that version.