ChatterBank3 mins ago
My Document Read As Gibberish
10 Answers
Im at the end of my rope. When I try to open text documents they just read in gibberish text, Any help would be much appreciared, Thanks
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Help us out please:
Are these documents which are already on your computer or ones which you're receiving by email?
If they're email attachments, what is the file extension on the end? (e.g. .doc or .docx).
Again assuming that they're email attachments, are you trying to open them directly from your email or saving them to your hard drive first and then opening them from there? (That's a far more reliable method).
Which program are you trying to open them with? (Microsoft Word? OpenOffice Writer? Something else?)
Sorry about all of the questions but the answers to them might well help us to sort out your problem for you.
Are these documents which are already on your computer or ones which you're receiving by email?
If they're email attachments, what is the file extension on the end? (e.g. .doc or .docx).
Again assuming that they're email attachments, are you trying to open them directly from your email or saving them to your hard drive first and then opening them from there? (That's a far more reliable method).
Which program are you trying to open them with? (Microsoft Word? OpenOffice Writer? Something else?)
Sorry about all of the questions but the answers to them might well help us to sort out your problem for you.
.xml???
Who the hell uses XML files? (OK, they've got certain specialist uses but I can't think why anyone who says that they're 'not tech minded' would ever encounter them).
Perhaps you need to define what you mean by a 'document' here? Unless otherwise defined, I'd take it to mean a word processing document, such as that nasty letter you drafted to your bank manager, the novel which you hope will make you famous or (if it's been received by email) the Christmas circular message which you get every year from a cousin who you've not seen in decades. All of those would normally have been prepared by Microsoft Word (resulting in a .doc or .docx extension) or an alternative word processor (possibly resulting in a .odf extension, or similar).
If you're using XML files I can only assume that 'document', in your post, means something other than a word processing document, so some further explanation seems to be needed here!
Who the hell uses XML files? (OK, they've got certain specialist uses but I can't think why anyone who says that they're 'not tech minded' would ever encounter them).
Perhaps you need to define what you mean by a 'document' here? Unless otherwise defined, I'd take it to mean a word processing document, such as that nasty letter you drafted to your bank manager, the novel which you hope will make you famous or (if it's been received by email) the Christmas circular message which you get every year from a cousin who you've not seen in decades. All of those would normally have been prepared by Microsoft Word (resulting in a .doc or .docx extension) or an alternative word processor (possibly resulting in a .odf extension, or similar).
If you're using XML files I can only assume that 'document', in your post, means something other than a word processing document, so some further explanation seems to be needed here!
Hmmm.
Unless you've chosen to save your documents in different formats, anything saved from Wordpad would normally be a Rich Text document (.rtf), anything saved in Microsoft Word 2007 onwards would normally use the .docx format and anything from an earlier version of Word would have a .doc file extension. So those are the file extensions I would expect to see associated with your documents.
I can't see how installing Windows 10 could possibly change your file extensions but it might well have accidentally changed your file associations (i.e. the programs used, by default, to open each file type).
How are you trying to open your files? If it's by simply double-clicking on them I suggest forgetting that for the moment and opening the required program (such as Microsoft Word) FIRST and THEN going to File > Open to see if the documents will load normally. (If they'll load that way then you'll need to address the file associations problem later but there's no point worrying about that until you've tried opening the documents from within a program, rather than by double-clicking on them).
Also, in case it's Microsoft Word that's become corrupted, I'd try installing OpenOffice and then opening your files with OpenOffice Writer:
https:/
(If they're OK in OpenOffice Writer, but not in Microsoft Word, it will suggest that you need to reinstall Word).
Unless you've chosen to save your documents in different formats, anything saved from Wordpad would normally be a Rich Text document (.rtf), anything saved in Microsoft Word 2007 onwards would normally use the .docx format and anything from an earlier version of Word would have a .doc file extension. So those are the file extensions I would expect to see associated with your documents.
I can't see how installing Windows 10 could possibly change your file extensions but it might well have accidentally changed your file associations (i.e. the programs used, by default, to open each file type).
How are you trying to open your files? If it's by simply double-clicking on them I suggest forgetting that for the moment and opening the required program (such as Microsoft Word) FIRST and THEN going to File > Open to see if the documents will load normally. (If they'll load that way then you'll need to address the file associations problem later but there's no point worrying about that until you've tried opening the documents from within a program, rather than by double-clicking on them).
Also, in case it's Microsoft Word that's become corrupted, I'd try installing OpenOffice and then opening your files with OpenOffice Writer:
https:/
(If they're OK in OpenOffice Writer, but not in Microsoft Word, it will suggest that you need to reinstall Word).
Try right clicking on a troublesome one and choosing "open with". After a few goes, providing we aren't talking file corruption here, you should find something that understands the, what I hope are, control code characters. If so then you can save as to a different location and move on to the next file.
If it is corruption, try to find a backup version or hand edit to extract anything useful from what you do see and save to a different, new, file.
Ah .xml files. I recall them when I was in the rat race.
If it is corruption, try to find a backup version or hand edit to extract anything useful from what you do see and save to a different, new, file.
Ah .xml files. I recall them when I was in the rat race.
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