Lost my file to text encoding!

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iochinome
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2011 12:15 am

Lost my file to text encoding!

Post by iochinome »

Hello all,

Last night, I wrote an important file in openoffice, and this morning, when i tried to open it up, it first prompts me for "ASCII Filter Options," including character set, default fonts, language, etc. It seems that no matter what character set I set it to, my file comes out as a bunch of question marks and # signs! I have gone through all of the "Western Europe" and unicode ones to no avail. How can I recover this important file, and how to make sure that it never happens again?? Thanks!

- Iochi
OpenOffice 3.2 on Ubuntu 10.10
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Hagar Delest
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Joined: Sun Oct 07, 2007 9:07 pm
Location: France

Re: Lost my file to text encoding!

Post by Hagar Delest »

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Sadly, nothing to do: 22 page term paper replaced with pound signs.

Check the temporary folder of the system (see in OOo Tools>Options>OOo>Paths). If there are folders like sgmlf.tmp with a file having the same name inside, make a copy of that file, rename it in .odt and cross your fingers.

Else, nothing to do I fear.
LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Xubuntu 23.10 and 7.6.4.1 portable on Windows 10
iochinome
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2011 12:15 am

Re: Lost my file to text encoding!

Post by iochinome »

yo what the f*** kind of an application pulls this s***?!?!? WHAT THE F***!!
Last edited by Hagar Delest on Fri Mar 04, 2011 10:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: offensive language removed
OpenOffice 3.2 on Ubuntu 10.10
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Hagar Delest
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Posts: 32627
Joined: Sun Oct 07, 2007 9:07 pm
Location: France

Re: Lost my file to text encoding!

Post by Hagar Delest »

We understand your frustration but it could have happened with another application too. If you want to tell it to the devs, put a comment in the bug report I've made (see in the linked topic, near the end).

But remember that the user has a part of responsibility: backups are your only lifesaver. It could have been a HD crash, ...

NB: please avoid rude language, we would have to remove it.
LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Xubuntu 23.10 and 7.6.4.1 portable on Windows 10
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Cambirder
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Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2007 1:01 am

Re: Lost my file to text encoding!

Post by Cambirder »

and how to make sure that it never happens again?? Thanks!
Important documents should always be backed up whatever ******** application you are using. Avoid working on files directly from things like memory sticks which seem to suffer from corrupt files more than hard drives do.
OOo 3.3 on Windows 7 & 3.2.1 on Mint 10
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