Corrupted files

[Guest]

Some years ago a correspondent on this forum advised that I should never save
a word document directly from the MS Word program to other media such as
floppies, Zip disks or CDs. Doing so could result in a corrupted file that
would be irretrievable. Instead I should first save it to my hard drive in
another directory such as "My Documents" before saving it to some other
media. Can this be confirmed? If it's true, why doesn't MS warn users or
have I missed something? I've had another instance of this when I recently
tried to retrieve all of the chapters of a book I wrote sometime ago,
probably in a DOS version of Word, and saved to a Zip disk. Each chapter was
a separate file and when I now try to open them in Word 2000 all I get is a
page of little boxes. What's really weird is that there may be a couple of
hundred pages of these even thought the original document file was for only
two or three pages. Nothing I have tried in retrieving or converting has
helped. Would some body care to comment on this problem? Many thanks.

 

[Jezebel]

Yes it's true. I can't speak for MS's thinking on this, but part of the
issue is that when you tell Word to save to a particular drive, Word itself
doesn't know anything about that drive -- it just passes the file on to the
operating system. In general, it's good programming practice for
applications to be self-contained as far as possible: Word trying to decide
whether a particular drive is a 'suitable' destination would be less than
straightforward.

However the problem you describe with your book chapters sounds like a
different problem. (The corruptions you get working directly with a floppy
or zip drive relate to the medium's file system, so usually the document
won't open at all.) The symptoms you describe -- many pages of little
boxes -- are what you typically get if you open a file in the wrong format,
such as WordPerfect or an early version of Word for which you do not have
the converter. Copy the files from your Zip disk to your hard disk, then use
the 'Recover text from any file' option under 'Files of type' on Word's Open
dialog. You'll lose any formatting but should recover the text. Or, if you
can remember approximately what version of Word, hunt around for a
converter. There are some computer archeology sites that have them available
for download.

 

[Graham Mayor]

The old Word for DOS converter is linked from the downloads page of my web
site, should that be the issue.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

 

[Guest]

Thank you Jezebel and Mr. Mayor. I really appreciate you MVPs and and feel
sorry for your having to deal with the idiosyncracies and complexities of
Word. To be frank I'm a "mundane or pedestrian user" of it since it first
came out and have never, ever been able to use it properly. I still don't
know how to use Styles and Templates. The first word processor I used was
Paperback Writer and it was perfect. It was simple - easy to learn and easy
to use - and, of course could do none of the fancy things that most of us
don't need and which only interefer with our atttempts to compose a simple
document. I wonder why MS has never produced two version of Word, one for
the experts and one for dummies like me.

 

[Amedee Van Gasse]

GrtZucchini shared this with us in microsoft.public.word.docmanagement:

I wonder why MS has never produced two version of Word,
one for the experts and one for dummies like me.

They have! It's called "Wordpad", and it comes with Windows.

 

[Jezebel]

Or go back to your psych 101 notes, read up on state-conditioned learning,
and start again.

 

[Guest]

I have just joined this dialogue. Unfortunately like everyone else, I opened
and saved several poems and the beginning of a book onto a floppy and now
they are no longer accessible. It sounds as if the consensus is that there
is absolutely no way to retrieve the "corrupted files"???? Since the last
last posting, has anyone found a way to retrieve the files??? If not I have
lost over a year of unduplicable work.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Copy the rest to your hard drive now or you will lose those too. You *may*
be able to recover some of the corrupted files by using the recover any text
from file option, but it is doubtful.
If the floppy itself is corrupt you *may* be able to rescue it with file
recovery software such as Easy Recovery Pro.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

 

[Jezebel]

Display field codes, then use Find: search for: ^d Hyperlink

 

[macropod]

Hi Samir,

If you press Alt-F9 to expose the field codes, you can find all the
cross-reference fields using '^d REF' as the 'Find what:' text.

To preserve your desired formatting in a REF field that looks like '{REF
_Ref12345678}' or '{REF _Ref12345678 \* Mergeformat}', modify the field as
follows:
.. select the 'R' in 'REF' and format it the way you want the cross-reference
to appear
.. delete any existing switches (eg ' \* Mergeformat')
.. add a '\* Charformat' switch to the field so that it looks like '{REF
_Ref12345678 \* Charformat}'
.. press F9 to update the field

When you're done, press Alt-F9 again to hide the field codes. Now the
cross-reference fields will retain your formatting through any further
updates.

Cheers