HELP! Word Saving Accident

[bookwormoakes]

I had written several pages in a word document without saving. In
total, I was working on that document for about an hour (my
Autorecover was set to save every 10 minutes). I had saved it once,
when I was about a paragraph in.

I decided to exit the document and finish it later. I went 'Word' then
'Quit Word.' My brain wasn't working properly because, when I was
asked "Do you want to save?" I hit the 'Don't Save' button.

Now I can't find an Autorecover file for this document. I've heard
Autorecover is only for when there's a power outage, not when the user
purposefully doesn't save the document.

All I've got is the original document from the first time I saved
(with only a paragraph of my work). I'm really close to freaking out
and I'm praying there is some way my document can be recovered. I'm
afraid Mac does not account for the user's stupidity so I might be out
of luck.

I really appreciate any help you can give me!

 

[John McGhie]

Sorry. Might as well give you the bad news straight up. When you hit
"Don't save", Word helpfully deleted its autorecovery file too. So your
file is not on the disk, anywhere...

Sorry about that. I've done it too... Some lessons are very expensive...

"Autorecovery" is next to useless. As you say, it protects you only from
power failures, and then, only if Word can read the original document.

Turn on "Always make backup..." from the same dialog. Then remember to save
Each time you save, "Always make backup..." replaces the backup file
with the previous version, then saves the new version. So if you get a
problem, you have two chances to get it back...

Cheers

I had written several pages in a word document without saving. In
total, I was working on that document for about an hour (my
Autorecover was set to save every 10 minutes). I had saved it once,
when I was about a paragraph in.

I decided to exit the document and finish it later. I went 'Word' then
'Quit Word.' My brain wasn't working properly because, when I was
asked "Do you want to save?" I hit the 'Don't Save' button.

Now I can't find an Autorecover file for this document. I've heard
Autorecover is only for when there's a power outage, not when the user
purposefully doesn't save the document.

All I've got is the original document from the first time I saved
(with only a paragraph of my work). I'm really close to freaking out
and I'm praying there is some way my document can be recovered. I'm
afraid Mac does not account for the user's stupidity so I might be out
of luck.

I really appreciate any help you can give me!

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Clive Huggan]

When writing something I really can't afford to lose, I frequently stick in
a memory stick (thumb drive) that I have previously configured to check the
folder the document is in. The application pauses 5 seconds and backs the
document up if it has changed since last time.

The application that does this is Martian LifeBoat
(www.martian.com/LifeBoat.html). Eccentric, but very effective for
during-the-day backups, as distinct from daily/weekly etc backups, for which
SuperDuper is a very good contender.

Most of us learned the hard way... :-\

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from North America and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================

 

[little_creature]

As others have said, now no luck, but if you hadn't closed WORD there
might have been temp files (how nice condition in past - sorry I have
to compliment myself, never find any use of it before in English
lessons , but once Word has been closed, it released all temp files.
No way, sorry. I had such lessons as well, since that time I do always
print the most important document even fragments just in case and
store them on 2 different places - just in case of the fire ) Yes,
I'm obsessed )

 

[bookwormoakes]

That's OK. I started trying to remember what I had typed and actually
got most of it (I think).

Thanks for the help, guys! Really appreciate it!