Recovering Corrupt OpenOffice Files - How It's Done

Recovering Corrupt OpenOffice Files - How It's Done
By Michael J Farmer

OpenOffice is revered as one of the trusted open-source software available in the market. It contains a spreadsheet (Calc), a drawing application (Impress), a word processor (Writer), a database management application (Base) and a formulae editor (Math). It is easy to use, supports many languages and accurately works on all computers. Although, its data is stored in international open standard format, OpenOffice can read ODF documents and Microsoft documents.

ODF files have the following file extensions:

• .odt - word processor documents
• .ods - spreadsheet documents
• .odp - presentation documents
• .odb - data base management
• .odf - mathematical calculations

OpenOffice Suite is used throughout the globe for spreadsheets, presentations, databases, word processing and graphics. It is estimated that OpenOffice is downloaded 50 million times in a year. Owing to its high credibility, consistency and efficiency, it is widely used in governments, businesses, education, F/Oss advocates and non-profit organizations.

However, it's a bitter fact that OpenOffice software is prone to severe damage. ODF files extensions get corrupt due to sudden system shutdown, virus or trojan attack, hard disk damage, changed file format, improper installation of windows operating system and many others. When an OpenOffice file gets damaged the stored data objects like text, tables, hyperlink, notes, cell data, calculations, graphs etc becomes inaccessible for the user.

Some easy steps for recovering the OpenOffice file include:

1. Backup file creation

2. Create a directory to work

3. Use a zip utility to unpack the corrupt OpenOffice file into the directory created in the step 2

4. Use the Openoffice software to create a new file

5. Repeat step 2 and 3

6. Substitute the.xml file directory content created in step 5 with the.xml file directory content in step 3

7. Use a zip suite to repackage the files in directory created in step 6

8. Change the file extension with the original file

9. Fix any formatting problems that can be found in a sub directory of the directory created in step 3

10. If you have recovered the content then delete the other folders as they are not needed now

In addition to it, users should enable the recovery mechanism by Tools> Options > Load/Save > General and ensure that the following choices are checked:

• Always create a backup
• Save Auto Recovery information

Above mentioned set of instructions may or may not work for the user, it depends on the intensity of the damaged file. If you still have a problem in recovering your file then it is advised to go for a third-party OpenOffice file recovery tool.

Since establishment, SysInfoTools is involved in developing, supplying and exporting highly reliable and efficient Openoffice file recovery tools. This tool efficiently recovers the lost data or Meta data from severely damaged OFD files. It supports batch recovery and restores the file at user defined location. To evaluate software performance, customers can use free demo version.

http://www.sysinfotools.com/products/openoffice-recovery.html

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