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

Don't save it do ctrl z to undo whatever you did that made it change.

Or close it without saving then open again

Will invest in stick like that, thanks! And see if can turn on time machine

It's already been saved lots now that c-Z isn't an option I don't think

I need a bloody time machine, where's Bill and Ted when I need them!!

I am no Mac'er but is there a recent files area?

You 'saved' the file in that state?

R u sure? As u can't see any reason for doing that. Close it without saving. If you already did you could try saving againunder a different file format.
Or opening it in notepad or similar as its file association is .rtf

It looks like a table, but I've not seen that text before.

Do a file search?
Any chance you have versions active and can go back to previous version?

I can’t help but I just wanted to say something similar happened to me when I was submitting an essay for uni. I remember getting my techy neighbour in and shouting at him to get him to help me! I also had an old computer at the time. I later learned about google docs and emailing to yourself etc- which you will now do of course! I think these things happen to people a lot. I hope you manage to salvage most of your work and get an extension to finish it. Think of the relief when you are able to hand it in!

Sorry shriek I fell asleep but thanks... trying again now but people and laptops awake thankfully

Updating to say I nearly have joy... nearly

It's close.

Now readable...

Spoken to uni and they're being helpful so no longer tearing my hair out

Thank you so much everyone!

Get yourself set up with Google docs - it's free and you can save things as Word Documents or PDF

My browser won't even open googledocs

But yeah once I have a machine that does... I will

Splendid! What was it?

Fuck knows... mum could open it on her pc fine...

She emailed it to me... still looking fine but few things gone wayward (taking out spaces between answers)

I keep thinking I will be able to submit it in a few mins and something else changes

Tech guys at uni agreed to catch it when I submit and check its readable though and pull it it isn't

Would be ironic when it's work about viruses (like measles)

If I have a virus on my computer causing it

I hope not... I thought macs were quite well protected

It wont be a virus.

Glad your mum was able to get it though!

Weird shit. Like TextEdit could save as a word doc but then couldn't read it back.

Mind you, I had a Sony CD writer that did that, back in the 90s! Could bake disks, couldn't read them after, other drives could.

Macs are not very susceptible to viruses, and viruses just don't do that sort of crap so it won't be that. But yours is really really old (like Windows Vista old) and hasn't been updated in 8 years or so. Download a copy of malwarebytes (free, though it'll keep offering to upgrade for money) and run a scan - it'll almost certainly be fine, but worth a check.

I think I have gremlins in my computer or something 🤔

Good to know it's not a virus

I hope to report I've submitted it and all is fine soon... I hope anyhow!

Been following this since last night. Fingers crossed for you OP

I think something amiss with your mac

Glad to hear things are looking more promising.

Thanks all... I think I've done it! It's submitted anyway! 😅😅😅😅😅

👏👏👏 well done OP! Now go and pour 🍷 I hope you get the grade you want.

Glad you got there!