next »

[dingdongdel]

Hello
Can anyone enlighten me on a subject that has puzzled me for some time please? what happens to my files in the my documents folder, they change and appear to be greyed out, and aquire a ~$ in front of the name of the file, when opened, they can't be read at all, a readable substitute file appears at the same time, but some of my assignments are 70 pages of  typing and I live in fear of losing them to the strange greyed out file, without a subsitute file appearing, is it safe to delete these greyed out files?  sure hope someone can help.
 Thank you dingdongdel

[Jutta]

dingdongdel,
if you save your Documents as a .rtf or Rich Text Format, there is always a chance that you will lose them, read below why...
Rich Text Format (RTF) (rich text format (RTF): A file type used to transfer formatted text documents between applications, even those that run on different platforms, such as IBM and Macintosh.) is a file format that many word processing programs understand; it is often used when a document is created in one word processing program but is expected to be edited in another word processing program. However, some types of data or formatting may be lost when you save a Microsoft Word document in RTF format. Instead, you may want to save the document in another format or use a document converter

In Word go to Tools/Options/Save Tab, is yours set up like my Screenshot?

[attachment deleted by admin]

[dingdongdel]

Thank you for that info, don't really understand it though, I type my documents in word, use the save as option from the drop down menu, then just keep saving from the save icon on the tool bar, so I guess I save in the default setting, as you can proberbly guess, I don't know a real lot about computers, but thank you so much for getting backto me.
dingdongdel

[Jutta]

dingdongdel,

When you start typing a Document, it is Ok to click on the Save Icon, in fact it is a good Practice, but  it will be saved only Temporarily (these are your ~$ in front of the name) in case of a PC. Crash or if you wanted to continue typing another Day, but.........

When you finished typing your Document, go File click on  "Save As" then in the open Dialog box , make sure in the "Save in Bar" on Top "My Documents" are showing , if not just click on My Documents Icon on left,
on the Bottom in the "File Name Bar" Type in the Name of your Document,
in the "Save as Type Bar" underneath "Word Document (*.doc) should be visible, if not click on the little black Down Arrow next to it and select it!

PS. Moral of the Story: If you click on File/"Save" only it is only Temporary, if you want to keep your Documents always click on "File/"Save As" , they will save as a Document.doc (permanent, not as .rtf /Temporary File!
If I where you I would try and "re-save as .doc" all the Docs which saved as .rtf , hopefully you still can.

[dingdongdel]

Hi Jutta
YIPPEE I understand it all now, thank you so much for your time and effort to make me understand. I see you are from Geraldton, I am in far north queensland, but was in Perth earlier this year, and drove up to Geraldton with my son to veiw the land he had brought outside the town, what a lovely seaside town, I had the best expresso coffee I have ever had in all my travels,  at a service station on the outskirts of the town. Again a big thankyou.
dingdongdel

[Jutta]

Your welcome dingdongdel!
We love North Queensland, been as far as Cooktown!
Your Son sure will notice the difference in Climate, if he settles here!