Problems with backup

[JanieB]

Hi,

I'm new to MAXQDA & I'm having problems backing up my work. When opening the backups in an external hard drive & a USB stick to check what had been saved after the initial work had disappeared, the 'work' displayed was just a few lines of random letters, figures & symbols, which made no sense whatsoever. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong & how to rectify this? I have followed the instruction on the tutorials.

Also I dragged & dropped my interviews, in word format into MAXQDA. Is the problem that I used word & do the interviews have to be in RTF format instead? I have a new laptop & am using Microsoft Office/Word 2010. I don't know if any of these factors make a difference?

If anyone can give an indication of what backed up work should resemble/should save, this will be handy too; then I'll know when I'm getting it right!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Stefan Rädiker]

Hi JanieB,

we don't know, why you see "just a few lines of random letters". Do you see them in MAXQDA or in a different programme? If you like, you can post a screenshot of the problem. To create a screenshot press "Print" on your keyboard, open a graphics programme and use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V.

Here are some general information on backing up projects:
If you create a new project in MAXQDA all your data and information will be saved in it. This project has the extension "mx4" and will be saved in the chosen folder. If you don't see the extensions of files in your Windows environment you can recognize the MAXQDA projects at their "Type" which should be "MAXQDA Project" or a similar expression.

To backup MAXQDA project files, there are two strategies:
1) Open the Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder where you have saved the project. Copy the file to a save place.

2) Open the project file in MAXQDA and choose "Backup project" from the "Project" menue. Choose a save place where to save a copy of the opened project.

There should be no problem with importing your word files via drag&drop into MAXQDA. MAXQDA converts them into RTF files while importing them.

Hope, this information helps.
Stefan

[JanieB]

Hi Stephan,

Thanks for replying but I don't understand much of what you have said, as I'm not very computer literate. I followed your 2nd example of how to save originally & this didn't work.

I tried to attach an example but it wouldn't allow me to do this & when I tried to create a screen shot (probably wrongly) it just started printing!

I see the random letters, numbers & symbols including letters of foreign languages, which is saved in a word document (I didn't save it like this) There are 1,000's of pages which just a few lines of gobbledegook on them. I tried dragging & dropping the maxqda programme from my desk top into the external hard drive & it opens ok this way but I think it's just opening what's on the desktop, as when I lost the previous saved data it didn't appear when I tried to open the icon in the external hard drive. Is what is saved supposed to look exactly the same as what's in the programme? Because I lost the previous work I have only uploaded interviews & have added a couple of coding examples, as I don't want to do any more until this is resolved.

I'm sorry if my explanation doesn't make much sense either - I'm very confused!

Thanks

[Stefan Rädiker]

Hi Janie,

we think the best would be to talk by phone. We moved your request to our email support team, which will contact you.

Best regards,
Stefan

[JanieB]

Thanks very much Stefan, that sounds like a good idea!