Microsoft Word Auto Recovery

Firetastic

One thing I have never understood about Microsoft Word is the Autorecovery feature. I closed a document tonight and I go back into it and you can't see the autosaved documents.

I know it says when you don't save the document it is available temporarily but where is it? It's okay because I have saved what I have done but this is one I have always wondered about.

Debbie_Savard

In Engish?

Neil_Jones

Auto Recovery is designed more for if the computer locks up or Word falls over or something happens where you can't save your work to the current state. You quit Word or restart the machine, go back into Word and it should then spot that you were working on something (via the Auto Recovery files) and load it back up again. From there you can save it back out again to retain the work. By default Autosaves are every five or ten minutes so if you couldn't be arsed to save what you were doing you should only lose the last ten minutes if Windows falls over.

That's the theory anyway. The reality is sometimes entirely different.

Iamzee

If your system crashes or machine suddenly stops or wasn't properly shutdown and the word file you were working on is open, then I think that's when auto recovery feature works. It's at the left side of your word window.

Firetastic

Thanks for the info. Recently had a power cut and had a document open but thanks to it I didn't lose anything. Stupid me hadn't saved it. Usually nag people about saving.

The previous versions.is the thing I was getting cofused with. It says last saved blah blah blah. Then you can click on one of them and it takes you to that version. However when you close the document There are no previous versions of that file. You click on manage versions and recover unsaved documents the box comes up with nothing in it. Is it a bit hit and miss?

DoaM

Auto-recovery is for instances where Word (or another Office application) is closed by some mechanism outside the user's control (e.g. power failure, Windows crashing). If you simply quit Word then you're presented with a dialogue asking if you want to save any unsaved work. If you click No then Word won't remember the unsaved data as you have consciously decided to not save it.

jbainbridge

http://http://www.knowledgewave.com/blog/how-to-recover-an-unsaved-word-document

ElenaGil

DoaM wrote: »

Auto-recovery is for instances where Word (or another Office application) is closed by some mechanism outside the user's control (e.g. power failure, Windows crashing). If you simply quit Word then you're presented with a dialogue asking if you want to save any unsaved word. If you click No then Word won't remember the unsaved data as you have consciously decided to not save it.

Yes, this is the role of Auto-recovery. Finding its specific location can be a difficult task, or do you want to recover unsaved word files?

that

Firetastic wrote: »

Thanks for the info. Recently had a power cut and had a document open but thanks to it I didn't lose anything. Stupid me hadn't saved it. Usually nag people about saving.

Word for many years had a bad history of locking up, crashinf and loosing documents even with autosave.

Do not rely on autosave, but if working on a piece that is complex and/or long, save the Firestastic.doc with 'save as' Firestastic2.doc and keep incrementing.

Word still looses stuff, locks or does not save on occasions, and keeping increments help. Also word sometime corrupts a document and no autosave will fix it, but increments may five you a lifeline

forgotmyname

Always a good idea to save your work every now and then. How much of your work do you want to risk and have to start all over again?

Something i try to do when working on 3D models, had a few occasions when the software just locked up and it sinks in that i have spent 3 hours working on something and its now gone.

Or when i make changes and it didnt quite goto plan, easy to roll back and try again.

Although one project is bugging me, it just doesnt work to my liking. I have about 40 unique files, all in various states, but none of them to my satisfaction. Started another one a few nights back and it didnt go right either.

John021

Thanks. :T