File being used by another application?

Question

This is happening on a Mac running OS X Tiger, but I have looked around the Internet and the same thing seems to happen on PCs running any operating system, so even if you don't use Mac please give a shot at answering my question.

There was a fuse blown at school today, so all the school computers in the library lost power while a lot of people were in the middle of editing documents. All of our computers are eMacs running Mac OS X version 10.4.10. Most people were using Microsoft Word for Mac, but I was using AppleWorks 6.

When the power came back I tried to open the document I was working on to see how much data was lost. It says, "That file is being used by another application." It isn't. I found the auto-saved version of the document to try to recover the data, in the AppleWorks AutoSave folder. It says, "That file is being used by another application."

I tried opening either document in TextEdit (plain text program). It says "File 'myfile.cwk' could not be opened." I assume for the same reason. The document cannot be opened by any application at all; it's not just AppleWorks.

I opened Command-Option-Esc (Apple's version of Ctrl-Alt-Del), and no programs were running. So don't tell me to open the task manager and end all tasks, because I already did.

I rebooted the computer, and everything is still exactly the same. So don't tell me to just restart the computer, because I already did.

I just want to know if my data is still there or if it's lost, or if you actually know what's going on, what I can do to fix it.

Answer 1

Probably lost, I hate AppleWorks... let me do a tiny bit of research.



You can try this... you see... whenever AppleWorks crashes, there is some corruption of the AppleWorks preference files & they need to be deleted before you re-launch AppleWorks. To delete AppleWorks’ preference files, go to HD > Users > Library > Preferences. Find and delete the file com.apple.appleworks.plist. Find and open the folder AppleWorks in this Preferences folder, then delete all of the enclosed files (with the exception of the Button Bar Preferences if you have customized the Button Bars). AppleWorks will recreate the preference files as it needs them.



Another possible option or two:



Try to open the document with the application Pages.



Start AppleWorks and create a new document and Edit>Insert the other document through the Edit menu... or try to drag and drop the document into the newly created document...



The only other thing I can think of is trying to change the document type from AppleWorks 6 to an AppleWorks 5 document.... I know you have a great knowledge of this OS so I hope these suggestions don't sound too stupid... I am pretty good with Mac and PC myself.... although I prefer Mac 1000 times over.



Hope this helps.

Answer 2

be sure that you've the present PDF Reader put in. once you in workplace 2007 save As PDF, uncheck to open that record after save. If the problem persist, close all workplace apps and open that record that you kept (PDF). I hasve been using this kind of large type of PDF aps and the 2007 addin is the right in stability, reliability and attending to the smallest length.

Answer 3

1. Use a different computer in the library next see if the same thing occures.



2. If it does, your librarian will be able to assist you better.