Can anyone help with an encoded/encrypted document?

[Deelady]

Ok I know this might to basic knowledge to some but I can't seem to figure it out... :(

On my lap top I dont have Word any longer, but I had some old documents save in word...recently I tried to transfer them into another program so I may be able to read them again and before I figured out howto do that, I accidentally transfered one or two to I think it was using my lap top's basic notebook program, not realizing it would encrypt the words.....now I cant figure out how to get it out of that writing. For the other documents I realized I can just email it to someone with Word and they were able to copy and paste the info for me.....except the ones I transfered as notebook.
Anyone know how I can get the documents out of this mess?? :oops:

TIA for any help!!!

[homecook]

I have no clue!! lol
You might want to put this in the "Computer/TVs/Electronic Devices" thread........you may get more hits!

[Miniman]

I am assuming that Word won't open these documents anymore. Will the lapptop open the documents - the basic idea is to go back to where it happened and get that programme to sort it out.
If it does you can do save as and select a diffent output. I would suggest rich text. This should open in any word processing programme.
Alternatively your new word processing programme may have an import option, use that to bring the documents in - it may then be able to open them.

[buzzard767]

Dee, do you no longer have a program that will open a word file? If so, get OpenOffice for free (huge). OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/)

[Deelady]

I am assuming that Word won't open these documents anymore.


I no longer have word available I just had the temp program that came with the lap top and it has since expired and I have not had the money to buy the program.

Its is in a DOCX file....I have been trying to read up on it but Im afraid its getting me more confused.....:blush:

[Deelady]

Dee, do you no longer have a program that will open a word file? If so, get OpenOffice for free (huge). OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/)



What do you mean by HUGE Buzz...is it a large file to download?
And I am assuming this will work for MS Word as well? Sorry for the dumb questions :unsure:
I will look at the openoffice right now thanks.

[Deelady]

I have no clue!! lol
You might want to put this in the "Computer/TVs/Electronic Devices" thread........you may get more hits!


Thanks Barb I didn't notice that thread :)

[jim_slagle]

Thanks Barb I didn't notice that thread :)

Everyone fasten your seat belts! :mrgreen:

We're moving to the "Computer/TVs/Electronic Devices" section!

[Deelady]

Woa...what a ride!!
lol thanks Jim :D

[Adillo303]

Dee - Go to www.openoffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org) and download open office. You will now have programs that work pretty much like word, excel power point and more. Oh Yeah! They are free.

Open office writer will open an awful lot of diocuments. That is all I use. BTW - It will make documents that others can open in word, excel, etc.

If that does not give yyou seccess go to http://www.dataviz.com/products/conversionsplus/index.html and look for conversions plus. It costs to buy, but, I think there is a 30 day trial that should get you by.

Hope this helps.

Andy

[Deelady]

Downloading now....wish me luck ;)

[Deelady]

QUESTION: if the document had already been resaved in notepad should the openoffice still help decode it? Or will I be having to try to reopen it in what Im downloading now....I have a feeling I made no sense just now....:P

[buzzard767]

Downloading now....wish me luck ;)

If you're going to send word files remember to "save as" a .doc file as most don't have OpenOffice - yet.

You'll love it. One thing I do is make .pdf files out of the writer (word) documents.

[buzzard767]

QUESTION: if the document had already been resaved in notepad should the openoffice still help decode it? Or will I be having to try to reopen it in what Im downloading now....I have a feeling I made no sense just now....:P

Once you have OpenOffice installed, right click on the document and choose OpenOffice as the program to open the document.

[Adillo303]

Dee - It should open it. When you say that you "transferred" the files, Are they still available on the original computer in their original form?

Buzz (Et Al) - Speaking of PDF files, You can go to www.cutepdf.com and get a free PDF writer that you select just like any other printer. It pretty mugh gives you PDF capability out of any program at no cost.

[Deelady]

Well I downloaded openoffice and it worked GREAT for all my documents....except for the one main one I wanted! When I try to open it it keep giving me a "Filter Selection" list to choose from and with everyone I try it gives me an error of general input output error...
as far as I can tell it has all the same properties as the other documents, so I dont know why its not opening.

[Deelady]

Dee - It should open it. When you say that you "transferred" the files, Are they still available on the original computer in their original form?

Buzz (Et Al) - Speaking of PDF files, You can go to www.cutepdf.com (http://www.cutepdf.com) and get a free PDF writer that you select just like any other printer. It pretty mugh gives you PDF capability out of any program at no cost.


No when I said I transferred it I meant from one program to another....saved it as a notepad doc.

[buzzard767]

Mmmmm - from Notepad help: "encryption"

What is Encrypting File System (EFS)?

Encrypting File System (EFS) is a feature of Windows that allows you to store information on your hard disk in an encrypted format. Encryption is the strongest protection that Windows provides to help you keep your information secure.

Some key features of EFS:

Encryption is simple; just select a check box in the file or folder's properties to turn it on.

You have control over who can read the files.

Files are encrypted when you close them, but are automatically ready to use when you open them.

If you change your mind about having a file encrypted, clear the check box in the file's properties.

Note
EFS is not fully supported on Windows Vista Starter, Windows Vista Home Basic, and Windows Vista Home Premium. For those editions of Windows, if you have the encryption key or certificate, you can do the following:

Decrypt files by running Cipher.exe in the Command Prompt window (advanced users)

Modify an encrypted file

Copy an encrypted file as decrypted to a hard disk on your computer

Import EFS certificates and keys

Back up EFS certificates and keys by running Cipher.exe in the Command prompt window (advanced users)

See also
What is encryption?
Safeguard against losing your encryption keys

[Deelady]

sorry I should have mentioned that since I downloaded the open office I no longer see the document as encrypted now it just gives me the Filter selection list and thats it

[Deelady]

**sigh** well I finally found an option from the list that opened the document but the document is now blank (even though it says the document size is 31.0 KB......can I assume this document to be lost forever??? :(

[Adillo303]

If the document has size, there is data in it. Seeing it may be another matter.

Have you tried this

Click > Start > Run > IN the box that opens type Notepad and click OK.

Notepad will open.

Click File > Open

Browse to the file and open it. Notepad is one of the simplest editors in windows. You should see something. It may not be pretty. If you see text that you recognize, ypou can copy it and paste it into a blank word document and reformat it.

31K is not a very big document.

Have you tried conversions plus at the link that I sent you?

[Deelady]

I did the...Click > Start > Run > IN the box that opens type Notepad and click OK.

Notepad will open.

Click File > Open

Browse to the file and open it. Notepad is one of the simplest editors in windows. You should see something. It may not be pretty. If you see text that you recognize, ypou can copy it and paste it into a blank word document and reformat it.

and realized that when I changed my other documents over to the openoffice program so I can open them that way at all times it automatically did all of them the same...
so then I tried the same step with entering in swriter (because it names that in the properties of the document as what it opens with)
and again it brought me to the blank document with the file opening that says "Filter Selection"
on the list I dont see SWRITER but only Starwriter....I tried this hoping they might be the same but nope it gave me the error.

I almost wish I can get the crypted writing back so I had something to work with.....
I feel like this is probably an easy fix but I am obviously missing it.

I'll keep trying.....:shock:

[Deelady]

ok I just got the crypted writing back when I tried opening it in notepad again that indeed shows me the info is still in there like you said.....I'll get it....sooner or later ;)

[Deelady]

oh my......LOL I cut and pasted as you said into a new document (the openoffice I just down loaded)
and it gave me stil the crypted writeing...but it spaced it to 108 pages!!! wow! LOL
Now I just have to figure out the reformating part

[ChowderMan]

oh dear, interesting day you've had . . .

two lessons here:
never work without a backup
don't 'force open' files using non-native applications.....

Word, as many other programs and word processing stuff, creates files with lots of binary data in them - all the formatting, etc.

opening a Word .doc file (.docx is their newest 'format' - std in Office 2007 applications) with Notepad - which is primarily an ascii / text file format - 'probably' read the file to the first Control-Z (which is the ascii 'end of file ' marker) and when you saved it using Notepad, 'probably' only 'wrote out' the contents up to the Control-Z.

it is not impossible (hence the 'probable' remarks - who know what MicroSoft has done lately....) that a lot of information past the Control-Z may have been lost - forever, given no backup. if you are familiar with the file contents, you can skip to the end and see if it is all (still) there - 'messed up' or not.

it is very unlikely that you will recover any of the prior "formatting"

all the "blank space" in your resulting file could be just that - blank spaces, or tabs.

as for reworking the file in OpenOffice, "search and Replace" is your best friend. you can Search for all " " (triple spaces) and replace them with " " (a single space) - Search&Replace All. Repeat as needed. same with tabs - search&replace all tabs with " "

if in OpenOffice you are still seeing control characters (i.e.: stuff other than zero thru 9 and A thru Z -cap & lower case - and spaces) then you're in for some tough sledding to slog thru the whole document deleting and editing.

how many pages was the original document, before things got unhappy...?

[FryBoy]

You don't need Word -- download the FREE Microsoft Word Viewer, which will allow you to open, read, and print any Word document -- it's from Microsoft, so it's safe:

http://tinyurl.com/2w3s6z

There are also free viewers from Microsoft for Powerpoint and Excel. Just Google for them.

[Deelady]

oh dear, interesting day you've had . . .

two lessons here:
never work without a backup
don't 'force open' files using non-native applications.....

Word, as many other programs and word processing stuff, creates files with lots of binary data in them - all the formatting, etc.

opening a Word .doc file (.docx is their newest 'format' - std in Office 2007 applications) with Notepad - which is primarily an ascii / text file format - 'probably' read the file to the first Control-Z (which is the ascii 'end of file ' marker) and when you saved it using Notepad, 'probably' only 'wrote out' the contents up to the Control-Z.

it is not impossible (hence the 'probable' remarks - who know what MicroSoft has done lately....) that a lot of information past the Control-Z may have been lost - forever, given no backup. if you are familiar with the file contents, you can skip to the end and see if it is all (still) there - 'messed up' or not.

it is very unlikely that you will recover any of the prior "formatting"

all the "blank space" in your resulting file could be just that - blank spaces, or tabs.

as for reworking the file in OpenOffice, "search and Replace" is your best friend. you can Search for all " " (triple spaces) and replace them with " " (a single space) - Search&Replace All. Repeat as needed. same with tabs - search&replace all tabs with " "

if in OpenOffice you are still seeing control characters (i.e.: stuff other than zero thru 9 and A thru Z -cap & lower case - and spaces) then you're in for some tough sledding to slog thru the whole document deleting and editing.

how many pages was the original document, before things got unhappy...?




I tried doing the as for reworking the file in OpenOffice, "search and Replace" is your best friend. you can Search for all " " (triple spaces) and replace them with " " (a single space) - Search&Replace All. Repeat as needed. same with tabs - search&replace all tabs with " "

and it tells me search key not found.....


I really cant remember how many pages the orig doc was, not many my guess would be 2 or 3, it was simply a compilation of saved recipes I had coppied and pasted....

[phreak]

Try opening it with Google docs.

[High Cheese]

Is there personal stuff on it? Maybe you can just email it to someone and have them work on it. I can try if you like....at least it will give me something to do. lol

[joec]

You can email them to me as I have the capability to decode a lot of these. You need to send the originals though as they sometimes get corrupted when opened with the wrong version if it is set to auto save. If you decide to send them drop me a PM and I'll give you my email address as well as get yours.

[Deelady]

it is simply recipes...nothing private. I did actually send them to Jim and he was unable to do anything, it told him they were unreadable...I have a feeling it might already be corrupted. I no longer have the orig form of it since I had resaved it as notepad and openoffice.
If anyone is interested in trying I would be more than happy to send it to you. I would hate anyone to waste real time trying to fix this for me since it is only recipes. But if anyone has time to kill then send me your email and I would be most grateful!!! :D

[joec]

If they have been saved in another program then the odds are great they are gone. I always save my recipes in notepad (text) format as it works easy with everything.

[Doc]

Any chance you did a backup of personal files on your computer and you copied the recipe files? If so you might find them on a CD or something.
If not, start your backup planning now so you don't loose files like this ever again. Then even if you encrypt them by accident you'll still be able to get back to the unaltered original version.
Were these your personal recipes? If not maybe you can return to the source and get them again ...or if they are personal but you posted them somewhere you can go retrieve them from there. Feel free to use NCT as a recipe backup place. Post them all here and you'll always be able to find them on down the road.

[ChowderMan]

Deelady -

tried to send a private msg with my email - but it's not showing up in my sent folder - did you see anything?

[High Cheese]

Backups - I just started using iDrive online backup for my company. We still use DOS based software so the file size slips under the Free 2GB mark. http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n248/Jeekinz/Smileys/banana.gif

[Doc]

Backups - I just started using iDrive online backup for my company. We still use DOS based software so the file size slips under the Free 2GB mark. http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n248/Jeekinz/Smileys/banana.gif
There are huge advantages to NOT upgrading if what you currently use does the job for you. Congrats.
It's always good to have an offsite backup ...just in case the worst happens.

[High Cheese]

There are huge advantages to NOT upgrading if what you currently use does the job for you. Congrats.
It's always good to have an offsite backup ...just in case the worst happens.

The "worst" has happened. I even had a 3 month old HDD fail, but I caught it once it started making noise. I used to use tapes, then Zip. Win2K had a nice backup feature. I don't remember the last time I rebooted my server....heard a commercial the other day so I figured I oughta set it up. Let someone else deal with the redundancy and equipment.

We also have the ultimate backup.....paper! lol

[FryBoy]

Free automated off-site backup is available from www.mozy.com. 2GB free, $5/month unlimited. Excellent outfit! Software runs in the background, you tell it when (daily, hourly, whenever the computer is not being used) and what folders or files to backup. Highly encrypted (486 bit), extremely secure. I've been using it for a few years in addition to backups to external drives. Highly recommended!

[Adillo303]

I use Mozy myself. The only downside is the time to restore.It took 12 hours to put my .PST file (My email) back. The upside - I got it all back.