Re: AbiWord problem

From: Ryan Pavlik <abiryan_at_ryand.net>
Date: Mon Dec 11 2006 - 04:03:57 CET

Not a problem, glad to help.

(cc'ing list to archive resolution)

Ryan
cdekorne@verizon.net wrote:
> Ryan,
>
> Thanks so much for the assistance. I was able to recover the file
> using a utility, and what you say about working in ABW and then saving
> to another format makes a lot of sense to me.
>
> Your good work's appreciated, Clayton
>
>
> At 07:51 PM 12/10/2006, you wrote:
>
>> (please CC this individual - may not be on the list)
>>
>> Hello! If there is no data in the file, then document history will
>> not work, as you may have suspected. There are a few ideas, though -
>> First, I'd look in the same folder as the document to see if there
>> are any .BAK, .SAVED, or .CRASHED files - these would be autosave or
>> autosave-on-crash files respectively. Renaming them to remove the
>> extra extension should allow you to open them, if they exist.
>> Similarly, search your hard drive for files with this extension
>> (Start, Search Files and Folders or similar, depending on your
>> Windows version, then put in the extensions above in the "file name"
>> box) and try opening those.
>>
>> Unfortunately, if you saved and there was no file actually written,
>> there is no way to retrieve that data short of perhaps editing the
>> hard drive directly. The backup files are your best bet - turning on
>> Auto-save in the future is probably a good idea (under Tools,
>> Preferences). There are a number of reasons aside from AbiWord that
>> might cause a normally-saved file to not be there: Windows acting
>> strangely about low free space, saving to a removeable drive (with
>> write caching) and not properly removing the device giving Windows
>> time to write cached data, power failure interrupting a cached write
>> to the hard drive, and so on. Furthermore, it is strongly recommended
>> that documents in progress be saved in ABW format - it is very nearly
>> failsafe, and any strange data problems that may crop up can be fixed
>> simply with a text editor. Choosing to "Save-as" an RTF is always an
>> option from an ABW file, whereas keeping documents in progress in
>> RTF/MS Word may result in some loss of formatting since not all
>> AbiWord features map perfectly due to design differences and feature
>> disparities.
>>
>> Sorry about the less-than-entirely-positive news... Hopefully the
>> note about the backup/SAVED files can help you out here. I have sent
>> this email also to the user list in case anyone else has better
>> ideas. (FYI, irc.gnome.org is also known as GIMPnet in Xchat, but can
>> also be added manually to the list if you can't find it) Good luck!
>>
>> Ryan
>>
>> cdekorne@verizon.net wrote:
>>> Ryan,
>>> Forgive my intrusion, but I am in a panic. I read a (cached) post to
>>> a defunct blog in which you state: " Dataloss bugs are taken
>>> extremely seriously and fixed quickly, if it’s not fixed already. "
>>> This gives me some hope.
>>>
>>> The problem I experienced with AbiWord is this: I tried to open a
>>> file that I saved Friday night 12/8. When I tried to open, I got
>>> message that Abiword cannot open because it appear to be "an invalid
>>> document." I was hoping that if it was a missaved event I would be
>>> able to use Document History to open an earlier version, but it
>>> won't open.
>>>
>>> I originally opened the file in Abiword as a .doc since I was
>>> planning to send to coworker that only uses Word. There were no
>>> tables in the file, only text, though I was doing a lot of color and
>>> font changes to highlight text for coworker's attention. This caused
>>> frequent crashes. If I try to open in Word or in Notebook it
>>> launches a blank file. There appears to be 0kb in the file
>>>
>>> I just started using AbiWord last week. I downloaded vers. 2.4.6.
>>> The file represents several days of work that I could not recreate
>>> in same way. Is there anything that can be done to recover an
>>> earlier version?
>>>
>>> I have tried logging on to Xchat, but am unfamiliar with this app
>>> and can't find which network the irc.gnome.org server is on, or
>>> otherwise find an #abiword channel. I have sent a request to
>>> subscribe to the user's Mailing List but Majordomo@abisource.com
>>> won't accept the message with my authorization key (continues to
>>> bounce back). And I opened an account on Buzilla but have yet to
>>> receive email back allowing me to login.
>>>
>>> Any help you can give me, either connecting to #abiword channel on
>>> Xchat, or to User List, or otherwise helping to retrieve the data, I
>>> would be immensely grateful. I'm even willing to compensate for
>>> professional assistance. This is an extremely important document to me.
>>>
>>> Thank you, Clayton DeKorne
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Ryan Pavlik
>> AbiWord Win32 Platform Maintainer: www.abisource.com
>> <http://www.abisource.com/>
>> AbiWord Community Outreach Project:
>> www.cleardefinition.com/oss/abi/blog/
>> <http://www.cleardefinition.com/oss/abi/blog/>
>>
>> "Optimism is the father that leads to achievement."
>> -- Helen Keller
>>
>> "The folder structure in a modern Linux distribution such as Ubuntu
>> was largely inspired by the original UNIX foundations that were
>> created by men with large beards and sensible jumpers."
>> -- Jono Bacon, The Ubuntu Guide
>>

-- 
Ryan Pavlik
AbiWord Win32 Platform Maintainer: www.abisource.com
AbiWord Community Outreach Project: www.cleardefinition.com/oss/abi/blog/
"Optimism is the father that leads to achievement."
 -- Helen Keller
"The folder structure in a modern Linux distribution such as Ubuntu
was largely inspired by the original UNIX foundations that were
created by men with large beards and sensible jumpers."
 -- Jono Bacon, The Ubuntu Guide
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Received on Mon Dec 11 04:05:16 2006

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