Opening .RTF no data (Word 2002 XP SR3)

[Diana]

A file was sent to us in .RFT format

when I open the file within Word, the document is blank.

However if we open the file in notepad, data is displayed. (see attached file )

Any ideas as to what may have happened to this file?

many thanks
diana

[HansV]

The header information is damaged. I have removed the header in the attached version, so that you can see the text in Word. The info about author etc. is list (but you can see it in the original version in Notepad).

[HansV]

Here is a version in which most of the metadata have been preserved.

[Diana]

Hey Hans

Thank you for that.

Int he email it mentions "This is a multi-part MIME format message." could this be the cause?

So i know for furture reference...what do you mean by header information was damaged. How would this happen? and how did you fix it Hans

Many thanks
diana

[jscher2000]

> Int he email it mentions "This is a multi-part MIME format message." could this be the cause?

That phrase normally is not visible, it is part of the message structure that aids your mail client in separating the message body and attachments from the message headers. If that phrase is visible in the message body, it is a sign that your mail client had problems parsing the message, either due to an unfamiliar/unsupported format or some corruption introduced in transit or processing (e.g., by scanning programs or conversion for mobile clients).

[HansV]

Like an HTML file, an RTF file is a plain text file that contains extra information about formatting etc. in the form of special codes. The first part (the "header") usually contains a) information about fonts, styles etc., and [img]/forums/images/smilies/cool.gif[/img] metadata such as subject, author, etc. In RTF, braces { } are used to delimit parts. I noticed that the word "version" occurred in mutilated form, and on closer inspection, I noticed that the number of opening and closing braces didn't balance around it. So I assume that someone edited the file in Notepad or another plain text editor, and accidentally removed a few characters. I removed the bit about versions, because I didn't know what it should have been, and (if I remember correctly) inserted an extra closing brace } to restore the balance. That made the text show up again in Word.

[Diana]

oh...

when I 1st opened the file in notepad I got the impression it was like an .XML or had some kind of code, possibly a WordPerfect doc that has gotten corrupted.

thank you Hans
thank you Jefferson

diana <img src=/S/smile.gif border=0 alt=smile width=15 height=15>