LibreOffice Help

[Blaquaza]

Hi guys, I need some help... Here's what happened:

I've been writing a story in LibreOffice, and it was all going well (30 pages wrote in a little longer than two weeks) until just over 10 days ago. I tried opening my file, and I got something saying;

'General Error

General Input/Output Error'

My story won't open at all now! The file seems to be getting smaller day by day, too... So, is there any way that I can fix it?

P.S.: I've checked, and other things I've wrote DO still open correctly. It would be the one that I needed to work on most that goes horribly wrong... :S

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

I don't know anything about this program specifically, but can you open the file in any other program (Wordpad, Notepad, Microsoft Word, Adobe Reader etc.)?

Microsoft Word can usually open most documents. If you don't have access to it, maybe you could upload the file here and someone can give it a try for you!

[Blaquaza]

Yeah, I tried Word and this Word clone called AbiWord. None of them worked.

Is there any way to turn the file into a .zip so you guys can download it? Compressing files has never been my strong point. :3

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

Usually you can right-click a file, go to Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder. This is in Windows 7, not sure for other operating systems. If it's just a word document you probably don't need to compress it though, as it probably won't be that big.

[3m0d0ll]

You probably can't open it in Word because you may have saved it as a .odt (the default extension for LO). I use LO and have never had this problem, but I'd say try to email it to someone/yourself and see if it opens that way. If that doesn't work, maybe try uninstalling LO and reinstalling it..? I hope you get your story back. :c

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

If that's the case, you could possibly try using some converter program to try to convert it to a word document. I just googled 'file converter online' and came up with this: http://www.online-convert.com/

[ray_quazaa]

If you saved it in a newer format like .odt, then you can try to change the extension to .zip, then try 'uncompressing the file.' This seems really ridiculous, but you'll find that most modern documents are actually a collection of smaller text files in a different shell.

To do this, you'll have to set your operating system to show file extensions (in windows, this is an advanced setting). Then, change the file extension to .zip.

You can, for older formats, just force the file to open in a text editor like notepad (or notepad++). You should be able to extract the text, though it won't look as nice.

In the future, I do my free writes in Evernote or Google Doc. If you need more help, send it along somehow to us and we can help you future.

[Blaquaza]

I've tried converting it to a .doc in the site that Sarah posted, and that didn't work. There was an error, so that's not exactly a good sign. And yeah, it is a .odt file.

Where are the advanced settings? I'm using Vista, by the way.

I'm guessing I can't open up my file in notepad, then? After all, .odt files are newer, and if they don't open with newer files, then I'm screwered.

My luck is pretty damn terrible... Just as I was getting fully into writing the story, too. :frown:

[ray_quazaa]

Blaquaza - If you provide the file, we can try to help.

Otherwise, try this to see file extensions: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hide-file-name-extensions#show-hide-file-name-extensions=windows-vista

[3m0d0ll]

My luck is pretty damn terrible... Just as I was getting fully into writing the story, too. :frown:
That really sucks, I'm so sorry. :C

[Blaquaza]

Blaquaza - If you provide the file, we can try to help.

Otherwise, try this to see file extensions: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hide-file-name-extensions#show-hide-file-name-extensions=windows-vista
I'll upload the file soon. Oh, and I converted it to a .zip, but the folder was invalid. 7-Zip couldn't even open it, so your help is probably the only other thing that could save the document now.



That really sucks, I'm so sorry. :C

It's fine. I suppose it was a bit of a wake up call, and I think that the new draft of the story is better so far. Life works in mysterious (yet stupid) ways... Mysteriously stupid ways. ;)