How can I recover a file from word 2007 when it says - "ilegalqualified name character" when I try a

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stookly
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Stookly

Hello,

I am midway through worrying so hard that my mind blows up. I've got a
dissertation due in on the 20th of August.

Last night I took home my work and saved it onto my PC from my pen
drive (scan disk cruzer).

Today, I took the pen drive to uni to work on it some more and word
2007 won't open it. Its a docx format. It comes up with an error
saying "illegal qualified name character."

I'm running windows XP.

I've tried open and repair and I've tried a different computer. I've
tried re-starting and I've tried renaming the file. But no such luck.

Its not the Absolute end of the world, i've only lost 3 days of work
but still, that's like 27hrs!!!!!!!

Please, help me!

Thanks!
 
If you're trying to open the document directly from the pen drive, don't do
that. It tends to corrupt Word documents, in a manner that is NOT recoverable.
Always copy the document file from the pen drive to the computer's hard drive,
and copy the modified file back to the pen drive after closing Word.

If you saved the document on your home PC before taking the pen drive to uni,
that copy is probably still ok. Check it there. Then make a new copy onto the
pen drive, and use that only to copy the document onto the hard drive of a PC at
uni. Go and sin no more!

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all
may benefit.
 
Ok I tried opening the file at home also but it doesn't work either.

I probably synched both copies....

Just to check, that means that the document is unrecoverable?

That'll teach me!

Should really be a warning thing somewhere in Word...
 
Stookly said:
Ok I tried opening the file at home also but it doesn't work either.

I probably synched both copies....

Just to check, that means that the document is unrecoverable?

That'll teach me!

Should really be a warning thing somewhere in Word...
Click to expand...

Damn right! It's a situation that's been there for years, affecting
just about ANY save to a removable device (as opposed to copying a
saved file).

The fact that MSWord is written like that is inexcusable in the first
place, and given that it IS this way, the lack of an immediate and
unambiguous warning is even more deplorable.

The reasons I've been given center around the fact that MSWord creates
temporary recovery copies in the same folder as an opened document
(already a bad way to do things), and that there may be space problems
on external media.

- Character
 
Just out of curiosity, what is the filename that Word reports as illegal?
The following characters may not be used in a filename

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

My web site www.gmayor.com

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