HELP--30 Page Document Saved to Hardrive suddenly turns into some

[birdofsalt]

I had been taking notes on a book I'm reading for class over the last few
months. It was around 30 pages long in Word and I was a chapter away from
finishing. I went to open it and it was all weird letters and random file
thingies. I'm totally at a loss. Please let me know anything I can do to
try and get it to convert it back to the original text that I had typed. It
was all done on the same unit and not saved to anything except the hard
drive.--John

 

[Terry Farrell]

Try using the Open and Repair option (click the little arrow attached to the
side of the OPEN button in the Open dialog.

 

[birdofsalt]

I dont understand where that is please be more specific. When I open word
and then the open dialog box it just says Open there is no repair arrow next
to it. Am I looking in the right place?--John

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

What version of Word is this?

 

[birdofsalt]

This is Word 2004 version 11.3. More things I can tell you are that when I
go to open the file it says Convert File and then lists Text Only MS DOS
Text. I've tried all of these but it won't convert into the regular language.

Instead of my notes it says this (exactly I cut and pasted it)
<key>File Aliases\MSWD27</key>
<data>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</data>

It seems like some kind of language or code? Or maybe its somehow
corrupted. It was very strange I was in the application and wrote down a few
notes then saved it and closed it. Then I re-oopend it a few minutes later
and it was all messed up.

Any help or suggestions are much muchhhhhh appreciated.--John

 

[Terry Farrell]

I presume this is a MAC version of Word. There is a specific forum for
MacWord. In Word 2003, the little arrow is attached to the OPEN button in
the File, Open dialog. MAC may be different.

Terry