Member Avatar for Darkangelchick

Hey guys I'm using Linux and I'm having trouble with Open Office. This is the first time it has happened. I try to open a file saved with open office and its coming up with translation stuff like western europe (Applemac) and stuff.
What has happened and how can I fix it?
I need this document for the HSC :(
Thanx

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Dani AI

Generated

Useful leads from , and point in three sensible directions: format/encoding mismatch, trying a different importer, and filesystem/permission/mount problems. The dialog asking for a character set typically appears when OpenOffice is treating the file as plain text (or the file header is missing) so the importer asks which encoding to use. That can be caused by a wrong extension, a file saved on another platform (Mac vs Windows vs Unix encodings), or a transient read/mount error on removable storage.

Quick diagnostic checklist (work on a copy first):

file filename.doc
hexdump -C filename.doc | head
strings filename.doc | head
  • If file reports a Word/ODF container, the file is probably intact; if it says “data” or “ASCII text” then the extension may not match the content.
  • hexdump shows header bytes; ODF/ZIP-based docs start with PK.
  • strings can reveal if it’s plain text saved with a Mac or Windows encoding.

If the problem is encoding rather than container corruption, convert a copy with iconv or let OpenOffice import with the correct setting:

iconv -f ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8 infile > outfile_utf8
# or try MACINTOSH, CP1252, UTF-16, etc., as the source encoding
soffice --headless --convert-to odt infile

Always keep the original file intact while experimenting.

Prevention and follow-up: copy files from portable drives to the local disk before opening, run quick checksums (sha256sum) to detect silent corruption, and examine the drive for filesystem errors or bad sectors if problems recur. Transient mount/read errors often produce exactly the symptoms seen here, which would explain a problem that “stops happening” later.

Recommended Answers

All 7 Replies

Member Avatar for Comatose

Sounds like it was saved in a different format.... is this the same machine you made the file on?

Member Avatar for John A

What format is this file in (.doc, .odt, etc.)? Is this the only file that you're having trouble opening?

Member Avatar for Darkangelchick

Sounds like it was saved in a different format.... is this the same machine you made the file on?

YEs it is...Like i have always saved them onto my Portable harddrive just like normal and they wont open and the only machine I have open office on is my laptop which i created the files and tried to open them on

Member Avatar for Darkangelchick

What format is this file in (.doc, .odt, etc.)? Is this the only file that you're having trouble opening?

Its saved in the win/97/98 whatever thing it is...just like always.
and its all of the files in that one folder.

Member Avatar for John A

Can you open the files in a different word processor? (Try .)

Member Avatar for prushik

I couldnt imagine permissions causing that issue, but the fact that they are all in the same folder makes me think that. Check the permissions on those folders.

Member Avatar for Darkangelchick

Its ok guys its stopped doing it now. I dont know what happened but thanx for the help

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