Recovering a word document.

[the tree]

I received an e-mail, the content of which I believe to be a Microsoft word document that wound up as plain text, it is completely illegible.
Is there some tool that can help me turn this back into a useable .doc?

[morganlefay]

Are you sure its a word document...not a MS works doc???

How did it change to text??

save to disk and try renaming with a .doc extension.

MLF

[MadBeaver]

You can try opening it from word. File-->open Then select the file type at the bottom of the open dialog box.

[the tree]

Are you sure its a word document...not a MS works doc???

A very good point. I have no idea whatsoever.

For those of you who understand these things, the text currently looks like this:

begin 666 ResponseT7486 7.doc
MT,\1X*&Q&N$`````````````````````/@`#`/[_"0`&```````````````"
M````&0``````````$ ``(P````$```#^____`````!@```!A````________
M____________________________________________________________
M____________________________________________________________
M____________________________________________________________
[...
lots of that
...]
M```````````````````````````!`/[_`PH``/____\&"0(``````, `````
M``!&& ```$UI8W)O<V]F="!7;W)D($1O8W5M96YT``H```!-4U=O<F1$;V,`
M$ ```%=O<F0N1&]C=6UE;G0N. #T.;)Q````````````````````````````
M````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
M````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
M````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
M````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
M````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
M````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
M````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
M````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
E````````````````````````````````````````````````````
`
end

How did it change to text??

I don't know, wasn't my fault, the e-mail came like that. Presumably it was meant to be an attachment rather than part of the body of the e-mail.

save to disk and try renaming with a .doc extension.

I tried that and Open Office couldn't make head nor tail of it and just showed me the plain text.

You can try opening it from word. File-->open Then select the file type at the bottom of the open dialog box.

I might try that next time I'm around a machine with MS Word on it. Thanks.

[morganlefay]

Maybe the New Office 2007 format

have the user resend as an attachment


MLF

[mohaughn]

It is also possible that the MIME type of the attachment was botched by the email system.

I have seen this kind of thing happen quit a bit when being sent from systems like lotus notes. Or, if it was sent from a unix system was it encoded using UUEncode instead of mime?

If you want you can cut the email from the point where it says begin to the point where it says end. Put it into a text file and run uudecode against it. That may salvage it for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uuencode

After looking at the sample text you posted I would say it is definitely uuencoded.

[nihil]

Hi the tree please send that to me as an attachment to a PM,

It looks like some sort of failed malware to me it seems to be in Hex?

[the tree]

I finally managed to use uudecode, which took a while because nothing I found told me that I had to install "sharutils" and it worked just fine.

It wasn't any kind of malware, it was statistics that I'd asked the Home Office for.

Thanks everybody!

[nihil]

Thanks for the feedback.............interesting! particularly given the source.

I thought it was pretty common practice for .gov organisations and the like to use .rtf, as that is supposed to be just about the most compatible format?

[mohaughn]

It depends. On some mail systems you can actually specify how you want to email the message based on the type of recipient it is.

We used to have a lot of HP Openmail installed in our environment. This kind of thing would happen all of the time if you tried to send a message using RTF to an open mail client. RTF is really a microsoft thing. So some older sendmail systems don't recognize all RTF/mime encoding. It is pretty easy to spot from the header of the attachment. It's just been awhile since I've seen anything coded like that.