Topic: Help!!! Word Converted My Novel to Asterisks

[J-Bert]

I am about to cry. . .

Working on revisions today, typing mid-sentence and the entire docx file converted to asterisks for no reason I can understand. I fortunately saved a version 3 hours ago that appears to be normal, but that's 3 hours of work I lost and I'd gotten a ton done. I have a 4-month old and 3 hour blocks of writing time are hard to come by.

Oh I'm so bummed. Has anyone heard of this? Is there a quick fix to get my revisions back?

[Mindy Alyse Weiss]

Can you hit the undo button?

Also, you probably have auto-save on, so if undo doesn't work, you might be able to close the file without saving and go back to the last version. (I have mine set for every five minutes or so, after losing chunks of work in the past.)

Computer issues are so frustrating!  I'm crossing my fingers and toes, and hope this is a quick and easy fix.

[J-Bert]

I tried undo and all it did was remove some asterisks. The second time it reinserted a paragraph I'd deleted (actual words) but the rest of the file was still asterisks. The undo option wasn't clickable after that. I do have a saved version from 3 hours ago that I can work with and redo my edits, but any recent autosave version is just asterisks.

I think I'm just going to start re-doing the work I've lost.

[Larissa]

OH, I SO feel your pain.  I lost 3k words not so long ago. (thread here: http://www.verlakay.com/boards/index.php?topic=63420.0 )  It was, for the most part, unsalvageable.   BUT, my situation was different because it was a faulty save issue. 

My first thought was the same as Mindy--did you try the undo button?  If that doesn't work, maybe try some of the suggestions posted in my thread.

After my tragedy, I set Word to auto-save every 5 minutes, and create back up copies.  I have to go through and delete the back up copies every so often because they pile up, but I feel tons better knowing they're there.  (I also email myself my work to two email addresses when I'm done, but that wouldn't have helped here.)


  I hope you can find your work.  I know how heartbreaking it is. 

[AnneB]

Been there, done that (not to asterisks--but I lost several hours worth of work). I know it's hard to believe, but you WILL be able to recreate what you lost. It's amazing how that works.

[Mindy Alyse Weiss]

Maybe it would help to copy and paste the new part into a new file, then exit out of the messed-up Word file without saving (or have you saved it since the issue happened)?

I'm sending more good thoughts your way.

[AnnH]

Do you have a Mac? Try http://superuser.com/questions/303060/word-document-changed-all-text-into-asterisks

Scroll down through the answers the 4th or 5th has something that worked for him. 

[J-Bert]

Unfortunately it looks like my work was lost. Apparently this is a known bug for Word that's been corrected with the latest version. (which I didn't have) http://word.mvps.org/Mac/asterisksbug.html

So everyone make sure you've updated to the latest Word software (I think it's 14.2.3?) so you don't run into this same problem.

Bummer. It's 20 pages of work I have to redo, but it could have been worse.

[Larissa]

I'm so sorry, Jennifer.

[JennaWren]

Ugh, Jenn, so sorry! I was hoping you'd find a fix. 

[J-Bert]

I stayed up to midnight last night redoing the 20 pages of work I'd lost. (And then got up at 1 and 5 to feed the baby. I'm going to be very coherent today!) But it's done, and you can bet I'm backing things up like crazy now! I hate learning lessons the hard way, but this could have been so much worse. Thanks everyone for your support and ideas for fixes!