Corrupt file

[Hans L.]

Hello:

Yesterday, I saved a Publisher 2002 file as I had every other day for the
last week. today, I can open all other PUB files, but not this one. I have
reinstalled Publisher. No cigar.

Can anyone tell me if there is any way to salvage a seemingly corrupt file
(several days of work; I backed up, but overwrote the old backup file).

Is ther any place where a previous version (temp or the like) might have
been saved?

Thank you very much!

Hans L.

 

[Mary Sauer]

Publisher creates temp files. You might get lucky. It is in a folder similar to this,
(XP)
C:\WINNT\Temp
You can try to recover a damaged file. Open help, Index, input corrupt.
If all else fails you can recover the text in Word. File, open, files of type, scroll
down to "recover text from any file"

 

[Hans L.]

Thank you, Mary.

Well, no luck with temp files. I am presently opening a 25 MB .pub file that
is NOT corrupt with Word, and it has chugged or 15 minutes now (the
advancment bar disappeared when it was about halfway, and there was a
message about the size of the pub file (up till then?); 7 MB I think, but
the message disappeard so fast that I am not sure.

In fact, I am not sure that Word is churning ... CPU use is 2-6 %, so it
does not look promising.

I'll try again.

Thanks and I'll let you know.

Hans L.

 

[Hans L.]

Hello mary:

I tried again, and the open process is simply suspended after about 3
minutes.

Well, we tried.

Regards,

Hans

 

[°°°M°S°°Publisher°°°]

Hans try opening the corrupt file with the option in Publisher.
Make sure the screen save is off and just don't touch the computer until you
are sure it is finished or stopped responding.

--

 

[Hans L.]

Yes, David, I am running Norton Anti-Virus, and I read somewhere that if you
send a file to another computer (i think it was), and you have Script
something on, the file might be corrupt. I sent it to a 275 MB zip drive,
and perhaps that did the same thing. Either that, or it happened during
the last save.

I gratefully take you up on your kind offer to look at the file. I have not
tried to send it, because it is 29 MB. I don't think I can send such a big
file,
even if you could receive it (I can handle 10 MB). Do you have an ftp site?

By the way, I tried to respond to you directly, but I was not able to send
the message to you.

Regards,

Hans L.

 

[°°°M°S°°Publisher°°°]

A ZIP drive is a disaster looking for a place to have an accident to happen.
How much other garbage/junk/trash do you have besides Norton and ZIP drives
<shaking head in disbelief>
How can you expect to have a trouble free computing experience when you
specialise in buying and what is more actually using the trash/garbage you
buy.

--

 

[gin]

just bumping this question up. i'd like the answer also. i
have a couple of files that are giving me a corrupt
message.

 

[Randall Arnold]

Your inaccurate and condescending reply is, IMO, uncalled for. The user was
asking for help, not scorn and ridicule.

While we're all entitled to our opinions, your assessment of Norton products
as "junk" is misguided to say the least. When used properly, Norton
Antivirus (and the other programs in the Norton suite) performs admirably.
I daresay I push the envelope to extremes (especially considering I am beta
testing Office 2003 at the moment) with my own hardware and software
configurations, and the ONLY issue I've had with Norton's AV product and MS
Office was when NAV briefly prevented Outlook from sending emails. The
solution was as simple as downloading the latest NAV update; Symantec is
VERY good about maintaining and supporting their products.

You do the user community a great disservice in passing off ill-formed
opinions as expertise. I respectfully suggest you limit your responses to
factual information and leave the mockery out of it.

Randall Arnold

 

[°°°M°S°°Publisher°°°]

Randall I stand 100% behind reply and have more than sufficient long term
evidence to prove them factual.

Only butterfly collectors that are sucked in by advertising, or those with
little to no computing experience would buy a Symantec product.

--

 

[Randall Arnold]

Again, you are speaking from ill-formed opinion, and are absolutely
incorrect. Your anecdotal evidence in no way translates to reality for the
remainder of the world, nor does your unprofessional assessment of Symantec
product purchasers bear any credible weight.

I highly recommend an education.

Randall Arnold

 

[Hans L.]

Hello:

If Publisher has so much problems with some of the most common "devices"
(Norton Av, ZIP products, networks), perhaps it is Publisher that is junk?
Now, I would not claim this, but while I have use Publisher just for one
translation project, I must say that it seems to be a rather unsophisticated
piece of software.

Thanks, Randall, for your eloquent posts. However, I must say taht Norton
Systemworks ruined files on both my wife's and my own computer, so I will
not use it ever again. However, Internet Security and AV are good products.
()And while I do not know if "Norton" is naything but the name, Peter
Norton's Norton Commander is in my book the best program ever made!

By this time, I have chucked the corrupt file, and redone the work in rtf
format (based on the .pub file), but I will have to go into the .pub file
again, so this time, I will discoonect from the Internet, turn AV off, and
save to my second hard disk.

Thanks, everyone, for all the insight.

Hans L.

 

[Randall Arnold]

Perhaps junk is too strong a word, but "not ready for prime time" certainly
fits IMHO.

MS has never seemed to know what to do with Publisher-- keep it a low-end
consumer type program, or ramp it up to commercial capabilities. So for the
past few releases it's existed somewhere in the middle, fooling many
business users into thinking it's ready for that environment. It is not.
As I've noted here and elsewhere, even at release 2003 it continues to lack
crucial business class features.

Publisher tries to fit into the same space as Adobe Pagemaker, but Pagemaker
has it beat in the features and industry adoption areas. However, Pagemaker
is a very awkward, non-intuitive program and Publsiher's ease-of-use wins
over many layout designers who would otherwise be using Pagemaker. I
haven't kept up with Ventura so I can't say where it fits into the desktop
publishign world anymore.

Truly serious professionals would be using Quark or Adobe Indesign given the
chance. Higher up still is Framemaker. But back to MS: I wish they'd split
Publisher into different usage classes, as they do the operating systems.
I'm betting most of us here would be wanting "Publisher Professional".

Randall Arnold

Hello:

If Publisher has so much problems with some of the most common "devices"
(Norton Av, ZIP products, networks), perhaps it is Publisher that is junk?
Now, I would not claim this, but while I have use Publisher just for one
translation project, I must say that it seems to be a rather unsophisticated
piece of software.

Thanks, Randall, for your eloquent posts. However, I must say taht Norton
Systemworks ruined files on both my wife's and my own computer, so I will
not use it ever again. However, Internet Security and AV are good products.
()And while I do not know if "Norton" is naything but the name, Peter
Norton's Norton Commander is in my book the best program ever made!

By this time, I have chucked the corrupt file, and redone the work in rtf
format (based on the .pub file), but I will have to go into the .pub file
again, so this time, I will discoonect from the Internet, turn AV off, and
save to my second hard disk.

Thanks, everyone, for all the insight.

Hans L.

 

[Ed Bennett]

Whilst attempting to develop brick-based storage technology, Ed reads a

MS has never seemed to know what to do with Publisher-- keep it a
low-end consumer type program, or ramp it up to commercial
capabilities. So for the past few releases it's existed somewhere in
the middle, fooling many business users into thinking it's ready for
that environment. It is not. As I've noted here and elsewhere, even
at release 2003 it continues to lack crucial business class features.

Publisher can never have as many features as the Adobe products, etc, as it
costs a fraction of the price.

Publisher tries to fit into the same space as Adobe Pagemaker,

I disagree.

However, Pagemaker is a very awkward, non-intuitive program and
Publsiher's ease-of-use wins over many layout designers who would
otherwise be using Pagemaker. I haven't kept up with Ventura so I
can't say where it fits into the desktop publishign world anymore.

Publisher isn't designed for people who want to publish books or construct
national newspapers, it's for smaller businesses that want to design/create
their marketing materials in-house rather than outsourcing to an expensive
design company.

Truly serious professionals would be using Quark or Adobe Indesign
given the chance. Higher up still is Framemaker. But back to MS: I
wish they'd split Publisher into different usage classes, as they do
the operating systems. I'm betting most of us here would be wanting
"Publisher Professional".

I would love Publisher Advanced, but it ain't going to happen.

The bottom end of Publisher has already been snipped off into PictureIt!
Publishing

 

[Randall Arnold]

We're all entitled to our opinions, eh? ; )

I maintain that even though it may not be Microsoft's stated or even
intended goal, Publisher is much closer to Pagemaker's space than it is to
low end tools. However, I doubt that it will ever truly be commercially
comparable given the current design and marketing philosophies.

My take is that Publisher suffers dual personality disorder, not really
"knowing" where it wants to reside in the desktop publishing world (I've
seen this assessment expressed by writers and industry professionals as
well). It contains a dichotomous mixture of easy to use consumer-style
wizards and tools while also addressing some professional needs with
rudimentary prepress capabilities (which I daresay most consumers will NEVER
use). My issue with it is that for some time now it's been positioned as an
Office adjunct when IMHO it really isn't ready for the Office environment.
It always seems to lack just *one* essential feature in every business
project I've used it on. I had hoped 2002 would be the version that grew
up-- it did not. 2003 didn't move much closer. I will submit my requests
for 200X.

I'm not just griping for the fun of it; my problem is I really like
Publisher and WANT to see it succeed. Even if my dream of seeing it branch
into different classes is foolish, I'll continue to push for it. Stranger
things have happened!

Randall

 

[Ed Bennett]

Whilst attempting to develop brick-based storage technology, Ed reads a

I maintain that even though it may not be Microsoft's stated or even
intended goal, Publisher is much closer to Pagemaker's space than it
is to low end tools. However, I doubt that it will ever truly be
commercially comparable given the current design and marketing
philosophies.

Although Publisher is closer to PageMaker's space, it is still in a
different class - and price range. I like the fact that it is in a
different price bracket, and so would not like it to see it increase
dramatically in price just to become like PageMaker - I'd rather a separate
product to do that.

It contains a dichotomous mixture of easy to
use consumer-style wizards and tools while also addressing some
professional needs with rudimentary prepress capabilities (which I
daresay most consumers will NEVER use).

Small businesses and non-profit organisations are the main targets, who are
most likely to need the Commercial Print Tools.
I wouldn't class the tools provided with Publisher 2003 as "rudimentary",
though - I think they're starting to get there.

My issue with it is that for
some time now it's been positioned as an Office adjunct when IMHO it
really isn't ready for the Office environment.

I disagree, but I won't argue

It always seems to
lack just *one* essential feature in every business project I've used
it on.

Like what? Tell us!

I had hoped 2002 would be the version that grew up-- it did
not. 2003 didn't move much closer.

What do you mean by "grow up"? Gain some extra features? Stop giving
wizards for new users? Increase in price by $500?

I will submit my requests for
200X.

Please do! Here would be good...

I'm not just griping for the fun of it; my problem is I really like
Publisher and WANT to see it succeed. Even if my dream of seeing it
branch into different classes is foolish, I'll continue to push for
it. Stranger things have happened!

Yep. I think this is more likely than Microsoft resurracting PhotoDraw...

 

[Randall Arnold]

Ed, I understand what you mean re price range. However, I've noted that
Pagemaker's advances have been incremental while Publisher's have
occasionally been evolutionary. MS appears to have a philosophy of dropping
a premature product on the market place and steadily adding features while
at the same time keeping price down-- ostensibly to chill competition and
erode market share of competitors, right? Well, as of now Pagemaker is the
only real competitor to Publisher (Ventura notwithstanding) so I don't see
how comparing the two can be avoided, even with their diverse pricing.
There is just nothing else in that space at Publisher's price, so I have to
assume MS wants to eat away at Pagemaker's potential user base. Note the
word POTENTIAL-- I doubt Publisher will steal away any current Pagemaker
users.

I understand also that SMALL businesses may very well be the intended
target-- but at my last employer (Stanley Works) we used Office, too. We
also had a need to create publications, and managers were loathe to purchase
Pagemaker or any other tool when Publisher was readily available. Inertia
is a powerful force...LOL. I should have specified that Publisher is not
(IMO) ready for MEDIUM to LARGE businesses, whose users may be prevented
from using anything other than Publisher. It may be harsh, but here I fault
MS for not taking advantage of what I see to be an opportunity here to
address this gap. (This is where I feel an overwhelming urge to get on my
Visio soapbox but I'll spare you all.)

One example of a crucial missing feature is one I've recently belabored
here: the inability to fully format table cells (a la Excel). For instance,
I want to apply the Currency format to a catalog table in order to force
database currency values to be represented properly (catalog merge). This
is a potential showstopper for a certain project that I'd hoped to do in
Publisher. I'm hoping VBA can save the day (it has for me many times).
(Along those lines, I have my beefs with the catalog merge wizard itself; I
can't find a straightforward way to limit the repeating regions to a single
page rather than one record per page.) I also decried the inability to
insert graphics into table cells in the 2003 beta newsgroup (a la
Frontpage). I'm astonished that such a basic feature is missing from 2003!
To me, these are serious shortcomings given my particular business needs.

As for the "grow up" comment, the above paragraphs should provide
illumination.

Personally, I'd like to see MS save Corel products from oblivion and buy
everything except PerfectOffice (Adobe can have it). Not likely, but...

Thanks for the exchange-- always a pleasure!

Randall

 

[Ed Bennett]

Whilst attempting to develop brick-based storage technology, Ed reads a

Ed, I understand what you mean re price range. However, I've noted
that Pagemaker's advances have been incremental while Publisher's have
occasionally been evolutionary. MS appears to have a philosophy of
dropping a premature product on the market place and steadily adding
features while at the same time keeping price down-- ostensibly to
chill competition and erode market share of competitors, right?
Well, as of now Pagemaker is the only real competitor to Publisher
(Ventura notwithstanding) so I don't see how comparing the two can be
avoided, even with their diverse pricing.

Have you heard of Serif PagePlus?
I've heard many people say that Publisher isn't designed to compete with
Pagemaker.

I understand also that SMALL businesses may very well be the intended
target-- but at my last employer (Stanley Works) we used Office, too.
We also had a need to create publications, and managers were loathe
to purchase Pagemaker or any other tool when Publisher was readily
available.

Publisher is mainly designed for businesses without a Marketing dept, IMHO,
and who can't afford to get designers to do it.

Inertia is a powerful force...LOL. I should have
specified that Publisher is not (IMO) ready for MEDIUM to LARGE
businesses, whose users may be prevented from using anything other
than Publisher. It may be harsh, but here I fault MS for not taking
advantage of what I see to be an opportunity here to address this
gap.

MS doesn't fill gaps if it takes too much work...
That's why they dropped PhotoDraw

(This is where I feel an overwhelming urge to get on my Visio
soapbox but I'll spare you all.)

For some reason, MS likes to claim that Visio is their answer to 3d
graphics. When I heard that, I said "Uh?!"

One example of a crucial missing feature is one I've recently
belabored here: the inability to fully format table cells (a la
Excel). For instance, I want to apply the Currency format to a
catalog table in order to force database currency values to be
represented properly (catalog merge). This is a potential
showstopper for a certain project that I'd hoped to do in Publisher.

I too think that the table feature is well overdue for a revamp. But
getting it to work like a spreadsheet/database wouldn't work for me - I'd
rather use OLE with n Excel sheet

I also decried the
inability to insert graphics into table cells in the 2003 beta
newsgroup (a la Frontpage). I'm astonished that such a basic feature
is missing from 2003!

You can do that! You just can't drag them straight in.
Drag the picture so the top left corner is inside the cell
Right-click > Format Picture > Layout
Under Object Position, select In-line

Personally, I'd like to see MS save Corel products from oblivion and
buy everything except PerfectOffice (Adobe can have it). Not likely,
but...

That *would* be nice...
We could finally combine the two .PUB formats!

Thanks for the exchange-- always a pleasure!

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Ed Bennett]

Whilst attempting to develop brick-based storage technology, Ed reads a

"Have you heard of Serif PagePlus?"

Tried it. Too awkward and buggy for me. I grant that the term "real
competitor" (key word being "real") is subjective.

I know people who swear by it. I never liked it, but it has a similar
featureset and slightly lower price than Publisher/

Again, granted, but the tool can and will be misused by powers beyond
that of the hapless user. MS's sin of omission here is a stubborn
refusal to recognize the reality of Publisher's misuse and act
accordingly (ie, diversify product line). Sad thing is, I've
witnessed the result to be outright bashing of Publisher... bashing
that is, as we both know, misguided. But pity the user placed in a
no-win situation. It's NOT their fault.

Which is why we need the Microsoft Publisher 97 Companion back - it teaches
you to design and create good layout.
It's not a lack of tools, and it's not necessarily a misplaced copy of
publisher, it's the person using it.

Most powerful marketing machine on the planet and it occasionally
stumbles. ; ) They dropped the Office Binder because few people used
it-- but I submit that it wasn't promoted well enough. It should
have been elevated in status as THE "office" in Office... IMO.
Tangential topic, though.

I agree... On both counts

"For some reason, MS likes to claim that Visio is their answer to 3d
graphics. When I heard that, I said "Uh?!""

I LOVE Visio. It's my all-around favorite app. But the marketing
muscle behind it is akin to the flabby underarm of-- well, we won't
go there. ; ) Heck, if they added TRUE 3D (the only part missing)
along with some minor publishing enhancements it'd finally be the
one-stop do-all product that would rule the roost... assuming they
got the word out...

I like Visio, but don't use anywhere near its full potential (I have no
need).
Poor promotion seems to be movingon to Microsoft OneNote now, as it isn't
being bundled with any of the Office releases (which would get it a broad
userbase and more people would buy it if it was released as a separate
product next time)

But I need Publisher's catalog creation ability to expose product data
stored in a single repository (for accuracy and efficiency's sake).
Integration and repurposing are *supposed* to be the raisson d'etre of
Office. I can't see myself using Excel to create catalogs... as much
as my boss would probably like it... LOL.

I mean linking it with your catalogue using Insert > Object - but I can see
where you're coming from.

As for the graphic-into-cell insertion, I could swear I did as you
say in 2003 and the graphic still floated free of the table. I'll
try it again though.

I tried it and got it working...

 

[Randall Arnold]

I think if we take this any farther I'll be down to my last split hair.

; )

Randall