To ask you to HELP me not to fail uni urgently

[fuckingwankingshittycomputer]

My computer is old I hate it

It's a mac

I need to submit as .doc

Weeks of work has now changed to bloody symbols that are unreadable

Last time it worked simply by saving as .doc

I am panicking please tell me this is easily fixed

I do have an old draft version worst case scenario but I've just lost a few days worth of formatting, spell checking and making sure I haven't accidentally plagiarised anything

Utilities is an app you have on the mac. It is not part of TextEdit.

You should see it in your app list in Finder or alternstively use the Spotlight search to search for.if.

Have you got the. rtf file saved?
Make a copy and try again.

Search for it*

I got to step 3... I have opened terminal

It just says last login Nov 6 on console (my mac)

If option 2 doesnt work I would try to restore an older version of the file using time machine.

1. Open the System Preferences application (from finder or spotlight search)

1. Open Time Machine

1. Check the "show time machine in menu bar" check box

1. A clock with a refresh icon will be added to your top menh bar. Click this.

1. Click "Enter time machine"

1. A load of windows will open which is basically a snapshot of your folders on your machine over time - assuming that it has been taking regular back ups in the back ground.

1. Use the arrow keys on the right hand of your screen to step back in time and hopefully find a time where an old version of the file was saved.

1. Click the file to highlight it

1. Click the restore button

Ok I figured out to type in open $TMPDIR but nothing is in temporary items

If you got to step 3 and terminal is opened you just need to type what i have in quotations and then hit enter.... "open $TMPDIR"

Okay that options ruled out then. Try the 3rd option I just posted.

This is where I am (photo)

Bad news then as it looks like it hasnt been doing regular back ups i am afraid

Open TM preferences just moved cursor into magnifying glass on time machine box

Open browse other TM disks and... empty under select the disk

Yup! Thanks for trying anyway

It's a cockwomble of a machine

(And I hadn't used it for years so hadn't checked anything stupidly as I thought it would be weeks not months I needed it before new one!)

I wish I had the rtf file saved

My desk has head dents in it because no... only one from days ago before hours of work making it submission worthy

Poo.

Does your relative has MS Word?

The last option I can suggest is to open the corrupt file again, do save as and select back to your previous file format.

Then open MS Word and there is an 'Open and Repair' option that can be used and is sometimes able to fix it for you...

Good luck

Don't even have rtf anymore or word

Relative on mac too but other people I can pester tomorrow to try (or just borrow their laptop and try myself)

Thanks for trying everyone...

Massively appreciated that people tried esp@Newdad19

Will let you all sleep!

Things like this are so shitty, hope you get sorted

Have you removed the .doc extension?
If you babe someone with Windows also ask them to try and opem in WordPad.
The issue is the encoding and macs are unable to read and display this on these apps.

I will wake another relative (god I am going to piss them off waking them😳 ) but worth a try and see if they can open in wordpad

Thank you. If anyone is in possession of a magic wand...

Otherwise thank you all... will leave my computer on in the hope that some form of voodoo works when I look at it in the morning

If it's the font - you said up top that it looked like wingdings - have you tried cmd-a (select all) and setting the font to Helvetica?

If not, post a pic of the corrupt text - it might be recognisable as to what sort of messed up it is.

No it looks like webdings but it's not webdings

It's encoded it (or something) as Mac OS roman instead of word.doc