Document corruption

[geophile]

My daughter was working on a large document (~450 pages), which she has been saving in .docx format. She opened it this morning and got an error message: “An error occurred opening the file … The error details are: SAXException: [word/document.xml line 2]: Opening and ending tag mismatch: rPr line 0 and ins. …” She clicked “yes” to ignore the error and continue loading, and then found that the file was truncated to 155 pages. Unfortunately, she does not have a version of the file from before the error message. Is there any way to recover? (I think I know the answer, but thought I’d ask.) I do not have experience with Track Changes, but was unable to use that feature to go back to a pre-error version of the file.

The LibreOffice version is 7.3.3.2, and it’s running on MacOS (latest version, I think). The document has only been touched by LibreOffice, even though it is .docx (for sharing with Word users).

[ve3oat]

I can’t address the recovery problem, but please advise your daughter to always save her work in the native LO format (.odt in this case), and to share the document with other users by then exporting from the saved .odt document to .docx format.

Is it possible that the document was not truncated to 155 pages, but was compressed to 155 pages through the loss of formatting, images, tables, etc?

[robleyd]

The file may be recoverable if it wasn’t re-saved after opening and truncation. Can you upload the file , if not re-saved, for someone to examine? Edit your question and add it there.

[mikekaganski]

@robleyd is completely correct; and the described problem is almost definitely tdf#149996.

Only if the DOCX wasn’t saved after it was opened truncated, it can be completely restored. Otherwise, everything after the truncation is lost forever (most likely; there is some hope to use methods from Preventing data disaster - The Document Foundation Wiki).

[geophile]

She is very unwilling to make use of features, and I think that saving in one format, and exporting in another, is probably too frustrating for her. She is near-Luddite – she writes in longhand and then types it in later.

She is an amazingly talented writer, but minimally technological

[geophile]

@robleyd, @mikekaganski : I believe it was not resaved after the truncation.

Would it be possible to mail the document to someone who can examine it, rather than posting it?

[Wanderer]

@geophile

saving in one format, and exporting in another, is probably too frustrating for her. She is near-Luddite – she writes in longhand and then types it in later.

Interesting position: Maybe lost 300 pages of writing, but sometimes exporting to another format is frustrating?
.
But then see the positive side: She has an offline-backup in “longhand”.
.
The technological solution for the future would be to install an automated backup, but it may be beyond her capabilities.

[mikekaganski]

@geophile: I agree with @Wanderer above.
Yet, you may send the file to me at mikekaganski@hotmail.com.

[rosaemilly]

help me please!!! SAXException: [word/footer17.xml line 2]: Opening and ending tag mismatch: p line 2 and hyperlink

[anon87010807]

[quote]help me please!!! SAXException: [word/footer17.xml line 2]: Opening and ending tag mismatch: p line 2 and hyperlink[end quote]

Please start a new topic when you have a new problem.