Story problems..

[fajrdrako]

There's a Captain Jack story I plan to post tonight or tomorrow, and I've been having problems with it. Not creative problems, technical problems. Can someone who knows more about computer software than I do maybe offer some advice?

I wrote this story in WordPerfect, which is my favourite program to write with for numerous reasons. Saved it as an .rtf file and sent it to my wonderful beta-reader, rosiespark, who returned it with useful comments. I rewrote it, again in my original .rtf file. Poked at it a few times later. Let it sit for a while, not by intent, just because I was busy.

So I went back to it a week or so ago and discovered, to my horror, that when I opened the story there were no words in the file. Luckily I still had the betaed copy from rosiespark. So I used that as my main copy, deleted her comments, and was rewriting it. I was working on it again last night and decided to go to bed and finish it this morning.

This morning, once again, my copied file was empty.

So what happened? Too much switching between .rtf, Word, and WordPerfect?

I have one more proofreading and revision to do, and then I'll post it. Believe me, I have many copies of it now, in several formats, including one online. Hah! I'll nail that sucker yet.

But I'd like to know what I did wrong, so I can never do it again.

Comments

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

I have no experience with Word Perfect so no real sugestions. Just two things popped into my mind. Basically it is 1, did you check the words were realy gone? It might be possible that a 5 page document suddenly turned into a 105 page one and it starts with 100 blank pages. So just to be sure, check page and word count. Other possibility that (for some reason I cannot honestly think of) the font color is changed to white. Assuming you have a white background you have a disappeared text.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I tried both those things... it said page 1 of one, the end of the document was on the top of the first page, and highlighting the file didn't get me anything at all.

It's a mystery.

I might add that I have many times in the past switched between .rtf, Word and WordPerfect files and never had this problem before.

Perplexing.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

I am sorry, I don't know. I tried a google search.

The best I can come up with is trying to replicate the procedure and keep an eye open to see where it goes wrong.

But that might take a bit of work.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think I might just try to avoid switching documents back and forth between the programs in future. Or at least - keep many copies as I revise!

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Can't recall it ever happening to me. Yet.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I wish it hadn't, I hope it doesn't, and I pray it never will again!

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

All I can say is: do you want to send me a copy of it for safekeeping? I can't imagine the horror of opening the file you think contains your revised story and finding it's empty! The stuff of nightmares.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

do you want to send me a copy of it for safekeeping?

That's not a bad idea. Okay, I'll do that.

The stuff of nightmares.

It is, isn't it? Thank goodness I had the copy you'd made notes on!

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

The nastiest quirk I ever met in WordPerfect is that if anything was selected and I saved, only what was selected saved. Is there any possibility that you accidentally selected a blank? ... no, no, forget it, you wouldn't do it a second time.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I've been totally unable to figure out what I did. My current theory is "corrupted file". In any case, I'll do everything I can to make sure I don't do it again. Suppose I hadn't had that betaed copy? I don't even want to think about it - it would have been devastating - ! I get attached to my stories in progess, while they're in progress. I really do.