Emergency, Open Office crashed and vaporized a perfected Magnum Opus

Well, if it is a data file, it will likely be under C:\Users\<yourname>\ in the \Documents\ or \AppData\ folders.
You have a backup of your system? Using Macrium or some other backup program? In case it was deleted.

got it, had added an SDD and new installed of OO.

Hadn't configured the periodic back ups.

It's all fine now, thanks

For info, Apache OpenOffice is almost dead. Its developers have mostly decamped to LibreOffice and there was a blog on its website asking for help in May 2020, i.e. more than 2 years ago.

See this Wikipedia entry for further background info and history, including the main OpenOffice developers leaving OpenOffice.

Its development cycle has come practically to a halt. It's last major enhancement release - i.e. new features - was in 2014 (v4.1), with the last minor enhancement in October 2015 (v4.1.2), i.e. nearly 7 years ago.

Since then Apache OpenOffice has only released maintenance releases, i.e. bugfixes. Its last maintenance release was v4.1.12 in May 2022 (Release notes).

Note also that after the last enhancement release a post appeared by Apache's own OpenOffice volunteer Vice-President discussing the retirement of Apache OpenOffice altogether:

I have regularly observed that the Apache OpenOffice project has limited capacity for sustaining the project in an energetic manner. It is also my considered opinion that there is no ready supply of developers who have the capacity, capability, and will to supplement the roughly half-dozen volunteers holding the project together.

By comparison, LibreOffice has released 98 minor updates in the same time period and its latest major enhancement release - v7.3 - was February this year.

You can see a full pictorial comparison of OpenOffice vs LibreOffice releases since their common starting point here on Wikipedia.


Circles show major enhancement releases - LibreOffice in green, OpenOffice in blue

Regarding ongoing development, yet another comparison is the number of source code updates last year - OpenOffice made 270 whilst LibreOffice made 1,315. Some of this is due to the difference in the number of active developers, some is due to the different licensing models used.

In short, due to licensing issues, LibreOffice can incorporate any improvement from Apache OpenOffice, but this can’t happen the other way around. This, combined with a much more active community and most of OpenOffice.org original developers, means that LibreOffice is evolving much faster (new features, bug fixes, etc.) than its brother Apache OpenOffice.

The only use case I see for Apache OpenOffice is if you have to work with some obscure ancient file formats which have been dropped from LibreOffice. Quora

Consider also the support for each version. I don't mean support for, say, Microsoft Office file formats but rather the practical support from the developers, community support forums and documentation for OpenOffice and LibreOffice when you need assistance.

In short, I would never advise users to stay with Apache OpenOffice, even the latest (7-yr-old) enhancement release.

Hope this helps...

I installed Libre when upgrading memory being well aware of OO exhastive 32 bit state.

Prior to fully engaging in the project and trying Libre, presumable operator error resulted in a quick mess.

I have never been a clerical type and have less-than-fond memories hunting-and-pecking to get thru MS DOS, Assembly, COMPILER FORTRAN, etc over 35 years ago.

Back then, MEN didn't keyboard only deciding it may be handy to learn in the mid-90s when my sexretary insisted.


Horrible, huh?

To this day I can think of hundreds of things I'd rather than draft document, print them, file etc.

Thanks again, problem solved.