Word 2004 notebook view hung... help recover file?

[justathought]

Hello! I am a student, use an iBook G4, 14" screen, 1.33GHz, with 768M
of RAM. I am using OS 10.4.2 and Word 2004 version 11.1 (040910). I
take notes in class on my iBook using notebook view because of its
ability to record the lecture as I type; that way I can review the
lecture with "random access" that's linked to the paragraph in
question.
Today as class ended, I clicked the button to stop recording, and got
the dreaded spinning beachball. That was hours ago and teh beachball is
still there. I haven't force-quit Word because a thought occurred to
me: if Word saves the audio (and text) to disk in a temporary file,
maybe I can grab it, and move the file to my other computer and thereby
recover the lecture. Does anyone know if that is possible? Any help
greatly appreciated!
TIA,
Xenocog

 

[Michel Bintener]

I'm afraid there's not much you can do, except force-quitting Word and then
trying to see if the AutoRecover function (you do have that function
enabled, right?) can get some of your text back. The audio file seems to be
lost, according to this Microsoft knowledge base entry,
<http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=841491>. Nevertheless, try to open the
file again; it could be that the file was saved correctly, even though it
doesn't look promising. Good luck!

 

[Xenocog]

Hi Michael, thank you for the info and link! I guess it doesn't look
too likely that I'll be able to recover the notes or the audio; I can't
be sure, but I think I disabled the autorecovery because in the past it
seemed to be related to causeing Word to crash (different iBook,
different version of Word, so it may no longer apply), and while saving
the autorecovery file, it also seemed to cause "glitches" in the
recording and typing. I was hoping to find out if Word stored the audio
to disk as it was being recorded and if I could recover that recording.
I tried using SpotLight to search for ".mp4" and found other files but
not the one I need... I suspect that (if Wrod stores it to disc) it is
an invisiblefile of some sort. I still haven't force-quit Word, but by
the time school starts again on Tuesday, I guess I'll have to!

Thanks again,
xenocog

 

[Russs]

Xenocog, I noticed that you were searching for a .mp4 audio file remnant.

I use a program called "Audio Hijack Pro" to capture audio from various
sources.

Here's what they say in Audio Hijack Pro's help file:
"Bulletproof MP3 And AIFF Recording
On OS X, applications crash a lot less often than they used to. But bugs
and kernel panics still happen, and if you're in the middle of a recording,
this can be a huge setback. With Bulletproof MP3 and AIFF recording, Audio
Hijack Pro constantly updates the saved recording, so if you have a crash,
you won't lose any of the previously recorded audio. All MP3 and AIFF
recordings are bulletproof, so just choose an MP3 or AIFF format to use this
feature."

Therefore, if one instead opts to save by using another format like AAC-
bookmarkable .mp4, you may gain smaller size or bookmarkability but risk
losing all, if the recording is interrupted badly.

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hello again,
searching for a ".mp4" file won't get you anywhere, since Word, as far as I
know, stores the audio file internally (in the .doc file, that is), and the
only way of getting the audio data as a separate file is by exporting it
from within Word itself. Note that Word does not do that automatically, but
you'll have to ask it to do that by using the "Export Audio" submenu in the
Tools menu. So I'm afraid there's really not much to do, except
force-quitting the application and trying to steal someone else's lecture
notes. Oh, and do enable AutoRecovery, or if you still don't want to, use
the "automatically create backup file" option; it'll make your life easier.

 

[Xenocog]

Hi Russs, Thank you! I am going to go to their site as soon as I finish
up here; it won't help *these* notes but maybe it'll help next time.
Thanks again,
xenocg

 

[Xenocog]

Hi Michael, I was afraid that would be the case, but it's hard to give
up hope! I'm going to try a few other things -- I'm using Terminal
to look for invisible files in the likely places; i.e., Documents
folder, the folder where I store my lecture notes, root level of the
drive, etc. If I happen to luck out I'll post it in hopes that it'll
help others, but it's not looking too likely.
Thank you,
xenocog