Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

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

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.

yo what the f*** kind of an application pulls this s***?!?!? WHAT THE F***!!

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.

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.