Four hours of works has (apparently) disappeared!!!

Factual Questions
1

Well not me, but my mother. She has been working for the last few hours on a booklet in Microsoft Publisher.

Although she kept clicking yes on the stupid little paper clip whenever she was asked to auto-save, one computer crash later, all of the work is gone. So before my poor mother is forced to rip out her hair and cry (no kidding there, she really was starting to mist up :frowning: ) I will try to find where the work went. Unfortunately I can’t find it. The closest is a 44Mb *.tmp file that will not open in publisher.

So does anybody have any ideas? What is that temp file (pub1A.tmp)? Is there anyway to recover her work?

2

I don’t know MS Publisher so I don’t know what it’s auto-saves are named but had you tried doing a find for *.<whatever publisher_uses>?

3

Yes.

4

try renaming the pub1a.tmp to pub1a.<the extension MP uses>

That has worked at the office, tho I have had Dev Studio completely eat my .cpp file.

Brian

5

Ehh, tried that too.

6

I’m going to assume there isnt a “recover” option in publisher.
Does it give an error when you try to open the (renamed) file?

There may be better alteratives, but…

You could open the .tmp file in a hex editor (I recommend hex workshop http://www.bpsoft.com/ ).

Long shot #1:
Create a new publisher file. Copy the pub1a.tmp file and rename it. Start flipping bits in the renamed file to make it look like the known good publisher file. (if you get this to work, you earn your geek merit badge)

Better than nothing:
You can at least copy out the text in hex workshop and paste it in publisher. You will lose formating info, but better than re-typing.
Given the name, I’d guess that the pub1a.tmp is the right file, dont know why publisher wont open the renamed file.

good luck,

Brian

7

I don’t know MS Publisher so I don’t know what it’s auto-saves are named but had you tried doing a find for *.<whatever publisher_uses>?

8

Sorry about the double post
I hit post went out and when I came back it said timed out.

9

I searched the net, here is one MS article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q191131

Or maybe this one:

http://www.mvps.org/publisher/section18.htm
"? How do I recover a corrupt Publisher File?

Method 1: Drag the Publication to the Publisher Program File Determine the location of the Publisher program on your computer. By default, Publisher 98 is installed in the following folder: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office

Method 2: Double-Click the Publication in Windows Explorer On the Windows Start menu, point to Programs, and then click Windows Explorer.

Method 3: Hide Pictures in Publisher Start Microsoft Publisher, and click Exit Catalog. On the View menu, click Picture Display. Click Hide Pictures and click OK. Open the publication.

Method 4: Attempt to Insert Text into a Blank Publication NOTE: This method recovers the text only from your publication. Therefore, you will have to recreate the layout and reinsert any graphics you want. On the File menu, click New, and then click the Blank Publications tab. Click Full Page, and then click Create. Using the Text Frame Tool, draw a text frame on the blank page. On the Insert menu, click Text File. From the Files Of Type list, select Publisher files. Select your publication and click OK.

Method 5: Move the File to Another Computer In some cases, you may be able to open the publication after copying it to another computer. If you can open the file, examine each page to see if there are any blank object placeholders and delete them. Save your publication and then copy it to the original computer. Method 6: Move the File to Another Disk Windows may not be able to read the file from where it is currently saved. Try copying the file to another disk. For example, copy the file from a floppy disk to the hard disk.