[SOLVED]Some .doc files opening with symbols

So I’ve tried to search and figure it out but I cant seem to find anything. My guess is that its an encoding problem and I do not know how to fix that.

Here is an example of what I get when I open some documents:

6t ######G##########�j�#��X#�n�#]#ܩp�[#�#�����P���o�h��Ģ#6<Xl##"%�y�R���>~,�EQ��%����t###%#�ZR"�#|Y�H8��w��\B�&�#pe###��-��#(�er^h@`#��ScY�'֘�6F�j|#�Q�\�	:�#ă��^B$��uЋv*N$#!a���s.ck!x#$�z�#���^Vh#�#��G��O���XX�Tb #���[�#��$�<}��	��:�#��#ыZ�:nע�*x�8��##�-#^l�#jXRK�#H9��I��##��(-1#eT^��7t##

�|]��5#YF#����B#R�#�Κ6���#Tk�##R��1��7a�1�#��F#��#r�#��8�<��l�#���

Any thoughts???

Using Linux Mint16 Ubuntu 14.04. It happens on both writer documents and excel/calc docs.

Your text sample and description about Writer and Calc looks to me as if you are missing font(s). The fonts you are missing seems to be very special because they cannot be replaced by another one.

I would try to find out what fonts are used and try to install them. Fonts are handled in the OS and not in LibO. In your case it would be Ubuntu.


part 2

I would do next:

1 - Check if really all fonts are installed on my Linux machine.

Take a safety copy the odt-file
Change the odt-extension to zip-extention
Open the newly obtained zip-file with 7zip or winzip => you will see about 10 files
Double click the "styles.xml" file or open it manually with a webbrowser or xml-editor
Look at the upper part of the document => you will see all fonts used

2 - Take a copy of a file which opens correctly on the XP machine and do the same and compare the results.

Well the Documents we’re made in XP using LibO or OpenOffice. I’ve downloaded and installed the fonts that I think would have been used…Ariel, Ariel Black, Times New Roman, Calibri. But Im still getting the characters. I will try and get a windows machine to open the document and see if it opens. I have tried to open it with MS Word 2k3 on one of our Terminal Servers but the same characters show up.

Im at a loss.

EDIT:

I’ve figured it out… Its nothing with fonts… Its some good’ol Ransomeware… Found out today that someone in the office had it and it infected more than enough documents…

Thanks for the help!

See part 2 in my answer