Help!! !

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hartzofspace
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29 Sep 2007, 6:21 pm

I recently put Microsoft Word 2000 on my computer, and then deleted Open Office freeware off of it, since it kept crashing and endangering my documents. Now, when I try to work with these same documents with Microsoft Word, all I can see is gibberish. What did I do wrong? Is there some way to change my documents back to a language I can actually read? HELP!

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MrMark
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29 Sep 2007, 6:45 pm

At work we worked with OO for about a week. It seems we could view MSW docs in OO, but we could not view OO docs in MSW. We abandoned OO.

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hartzofspace
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29 Sep 2007, 6:59 pm

Well, I've abandoned Oo, but now I can't view my documents! Does anyone know what I can do?

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Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.
-- Dr. Dale Turner

krankes_hirn
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Joined: 26 Sep 2007
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29 Sep 2007, 9:01 pm

i heard about a patch that can make MSW read OpenDocument files, but not really sure.

hartzofspace
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30 Sep 2007, 1:56 am

well, I ended up re-installing Oo, and eliminating MW. Anyone want to buy a CD of Microsoft Word 2000?

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Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.
-- Dr. Dale Turner

computerlove
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01 Oct 2007, 10:34 am

try Saving As, from OO, so you can choose a different format. There must be an option to save to a safe format like RTF.

Also, see if there's an option to save as MS Word.

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hartzofspace
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01 Oct 2007, 2:45 pm

I will try that. I don't know why Oo keeps crashing. I completely uninstalled, and then reinstalled it. Seemed to be going fine, and then it crashed, losing about an hours worth of editing and work. As I am working on a manuscript, this is highly frustrating!

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Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.
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Zwerfbeertje
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Joined: 6 Sep 2007
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01 Oct 2007, 3:34 pm

A few rules of thumb
1) Safe often
2) Don't change anything major (that is working fine) during a large project.

I think these follow from Murphy's Law(s)

computerlove
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01 Oct 2007, 4:15 pm

Zwerfbeertje wrote:

A few rules of thumb
1) Safe often
2) Don't change anything major (that is working fine) during a large project.

I think these follow from Murphy's Law(s)

also:
3) Save a copy (Backup)

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geek
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01 Oct 2007, 5:33 pm

Yeah, save often. That's a lesson I learned back when uninterruptable power supplies started at around $400.

Open Office doesn't save in Microsoft format by default, but you can open those documents in OO and save them in an MS format if you like.

MS Word isn't always compatible with MS Word documents itself, because MS keeps making changes to the format, apparently in the hopes that people will be forced to buy newer copies of their software. This tactic also naturally messes up word processors from competitors.

You can expect to see this same phenomenon in a number of areas. A Linux system, for example, will rarely have any problem reading Windows disk partitions, and will usually be able to write to them as well. But all Windows will do with a Linux partition is ask you if you want to reformat it. MS seems to think that making their products incompatible with everything else is a great way to go. :roll:

computerlove
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01 Oct 2007, 11:43 pm

hartzofspace wrote:

I recently put Microsoft Word 2000 on my computer, and then deleted Open Office

Another tip: never get rid of the old bucket 'till you are sure the new one doesn't leak

I think this is an appropiate moment to recommend Filehamster:

Quote:

"FileHamster is a version tracking application for developers, graphic artists and other content creators that frequently modify existing files."

Easy to use, just tell it which folder to watch, and every time you save, it will make a backup of the modified files.

http://www.mogware.com/FileHamster/

It saved my life a couple of weeks ago

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Beta-guy
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Joined: 13 Sep 2006
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02 Oct 2007, 3:44 am

I think it's wiser to stay with OO rather MSW, the ODF is an open standard, that means a document you write today will be readable 20, even 50 years from now, can you open up a Word 3.0 document or a Word 95 document and have it display without issues in Word 2007?

regarding the crashing issue how long has it been since you last formatted?
there is now OO 2.3 to download, if you want to give that a shot, but I've have OO open for days at a time and no crashes.

hartzofspace
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02 Oct 2007, 11:56 am

Beta-guy wrote:

I just downloaded OO 2.3. I was working for about 1.5 hours when I got a notice that it had done something wrong and had to be shut down. It claimed that it had recovered my work, but it hadn't. I had to go back and try to remember what I had written. I'm not sure what you mean by format?

_________________
Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.
-- Dr. Dale Turner

hartzofspace
Supporting Member

Joined: 14 Apr 2005
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,138
Location: On the Road Less Traveled

02 Oct 2007, 12:04 pm

computerlove wrote:

hartzofspace wrote:

I recently put Microsoft Word 2000 on my computer, and then deleted Open Office

Another tip: never get rid of the old bucket 'till you are sure the new one doesn't leak

I think this is an appropiate moment to recommend Filehamster:

Quote:

"FileHamster is a version tracking application for developers, graphic artists and other content creators that frequently modify existing files."

Easy to use, just tell it which folder to watch, and every time you save, it will make a backup of the modified files.

http://www.mogware.com/FileHamster/

Thanks for the link. I just downloaded FileHamster!

It saved my life a couple of weeks ago

_________________
Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.
-- Dr. Dale Turner

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