Expert: Tom Rouze - 6/29/2005

Question
I had been working on logo samples for my portfolio in Illustrator 10 on a PC and created a sketch file with four layers, and about ten font tests(each saying sandwich shop) on the first layer.  When I closed the file last night a warning came up about not embedding two fonts, which are both freeware, so no surprise.  Upon opening it this morning though, the file gave this warning: Can't open illustration. The illustration does not have the correct number of operands for an operator.

After clicking ok, the file opens with the top three layers missing, most of the font tests gone, and parts of an illustration missing.

When opened in Photoshop 7 the complete first layer is rastered.  When opened in Acrobat 6 Pro only what's inside the page tile is viewable, but the thumbnail shows the whole of layer one.

I have opened the file using Notepad to remove the coding for the offending font, but it made things worse.(I saved the revised file under a different name so I still have original)

Is there any way to rescue this file?

Thank you

Answer
Hi Jamie,
I wish I could help you with this but this is beyond me.  Unfortunately I haven't heard of anything about repairing something like this.  
Here's some 20/20 hindsight advice...and I speak from experience... save, save, save... and backup your files whenever you are working on something where there's alot of time involved to recreate.  Like I said I learned the hard way... I lost 4 hrs worth of recreating a very complex logo.
I'll ask around some people I know to see if they know of something.  I'll let you know if I come up with something.

Regards,
Tom