how to recover unsaved document after crash

[keyvanantonioheydari]

I was working on a document, and the Imac G5 Word program froze. Is
there any way I can get the text back once I restart the computer? The
same way PCs have some sort of autosave and a PC retains the last
version of a file if the power goes. The text was very important to me.
Any sort of solution is welcome.
Thanks,

 

[Beth Rosengard]

It depends on when you'd last saved and also which of Word's Preferences you
had set (and how).

If you *never* saved the document (just opened a new doc window and started
typing without ever saving and giving the doc a title), then you're out of
luck.

If you did save the document, then what you'll be able to recover depends on
how your preferences were set and when you last hit Save.

If your Save preferences were set at the default, then you had AutoRecover
set to save every 10 minutes. That means Word should have saved the
document intact with the exception of the last ten minutes worth of typing
(unless you manually hit Save during those ten minutes, which would save
even more).

There are other Save options but the fact you asked the question implies
that your preferences were at the default values.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>
My Site: <http://www.bethrosengard.com>

 

[keyvanantonioheydari]

Dear Beth, Thanks for your response. But the harsh truth is that I
"never" saved the document before the crash. However, figuring that an
accidental severing in the program's operations would "save" the last
version before the (as if power had gone, let's say) cut, as in some PC
programs, I thought there might be some cache inside the machine which
would give me some hope of recovering the text.
Thanks,

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

WinWord works exactly the same way as Beth described. Neither Word, by the
way, really has an AutoSave. (Other programs may behave differently)

More information here:
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/AutomaticSave.htm
(hit reload a few times in Safari, or use a different browser)

 

[John McGhie [MVP -- Word and Word Mac]]

Hi Bob:

{Sigh} You young pups...

Borland Sprint saved each line to file as it was typed. When you hit "New
Document" it prompted for the file name and location at that point. There
was no way to lose more than a line of text in Sprint.

No wonder it failed in the marketplace: "My computer crashed and lost my
homework" did not work for either the students or their parents...

So there...

--

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer, Microsoft MVP (Word, Word for Mac)
Sydney, Australia +61 (0)4 1209 1410

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi John -

Thanx - I love it when a rebuttal actually reinforces the point ! You
make my case as soon as you write:

The user was *prompted*... the naming & saving didn't happen
*automatically*... And IIRC, if the user failed to respond with the info he
couldn't proceed, creation of the new doc was cancelled & the line-by-line
save never had a chance to take place.

I got the impression from the OP's first post that he/she expected to be
able to launch Word, start typing & have everything handled for them from
then on [key words] automatically & "the same way PCs have..." - which is a
dire misconception (I also saw it as an unjust slap at the Mac). That just
doesn't happen on either platform - at least not in any word processing
program I've ever seen over the last 25 years. Even those that have an
AutoSave require that the file be 'manually' saved the first time.

Quite frankly, I'm glad to know that there are still a few remaining
bastions of personal responsibility

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Bob:

Thanx - I love it when a rebuttal actually reinforces the point ! You
make my case as soon as you write:


The user was *prompted*... the naming & saving didn't happen
*automatically*... And IIRC, if the user failed to respond with the info he
couldn't proceed, creation of the new doc was cancelled & the line-by-line
save never had a chance to take place.

I don't remember: I thought you could simply dismiss the dialog and
continue... This is 1993 we're talking about

I got the impression from the OP's first post that he/she expected to be
able to launch Word, start typing & have everything handled for them from
then on [key words] automatically & "the same way PCs have..." - which is a
dire misconception (I also saw it as an unjust slap at the Mac). That just
doesn't happen on either platform - at least not in any word processing
program I've ever seen over the last 25 years. Even those that have an
AutoSave require that the file be 'manually' saved the first time.

Yes, you're quite correct. On eithe platform, in any Microsoft application,
you will be required to assign a file name in order to get your file BACK.

The really infuriating thing is: it actually works exactly the way the user
wants it to. When Word creates a new file, it opens a disk file in the Temp
folder to store it in.

Sadly, unless the user agrees to assign a file name, Word DELETES the temp
file when it next restarts

If you're quick enough, you can actually get at that file. Just not with
that copy of Word (because if you restart Word, it will delete the file!).
And the file may not actually contain much, unless the Autorecover has had a
chance to kick in (typically ten minutes, unless the user resets it).

However, before people start clamouring for instructions on how to get their
lost files back, lemme give them the bad news... There's anything up to 20
different files for a document. The text is scattered literally at random
amongst the files. And there's no guarantee that it's in any particular
order: Word write shorthand notes to itself. It doesn't assemble them into
a coherent "document" until you officially save. You obviously can't use
Word to open the file (because it will delete the files if you start it...)
And of course, if you have closed the file then reopened a different one,
the temporary file is not there at all

Quite frankly, I'm glad to know that there are still a few remaining
bastions of personal responsibility

If you had a memory like mine, you'd be a lot less enthusiastic about that
"personal responsibility bit"

Cheers

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Phillip Jones]

Funny thing is when the sesion is over with I see littered all over the
place

Johnny comes marching home.doc
Backup Johnny Comes Marching Home. doc

I remember years ago I believe 6.0.1.a also had this feature but they
were save in one location. and they were invisible. And with the advent
of Office2001 they save the backup visiable and in excat same location
original is saved. I thought they were to be saved only if an early shut
down. And if You actually quit through the main menu after closing
Document they were to automatically to distroy the Backup file upon close.

Hi Bob:

Thanx - I love it when a rebuttal actually reinforces the point ! You
make my case as soon as you write:

The user was *prompted*... the naming & saving didn't happen
*automatically*... And IIRC, if the user failed to respond with the info he
couldn't proceed, creation of the new doc was cancelled & the line-by-line
save never had a chance to take place.

I don't remember: I thought you could simply dismiss the dialog and
continue... This is 1993 we're talking about

I got the impression from the OP's first post that he/she expected to be
able to launch Word, start typing & have everything handled for them from
then on [key words] automatically & "the same way PCs have..." - which is a
dire misconception (I also saw it as an unjust slap at the Mac). That just
doesn't happen on either platform - at least not in any word processing
program I've ever seen over the last 25 years. Even those that have an
AutoSave require that the file be 'manually' saved the first time.

Yes, you're quite correct. On eithe platform, in any Microsoft application,
you will be required to assign a file name in order to get your file BACK.

The really infuriating thing is: it actually works exactly the way the user
wants it to. When Word creates a new file, it opens a disk file in the Temp
folder to store it in.

Sadly, unless the user agrees to assign a file name, Word DELETES the temp
file when it next restarts

If you're quick enough, you can actually get at that file. Just not with
that copy of Word (because if you restart Word, it will delete the file!).
And the file may not actually contain much, unless the Autorecover has had a
chance to kick in (typically ten minutes, unless the user resets it).

However, before people start clamouring for instructions on how to get their
lost files back, lemme give them the bad news... There's anything up to 20
different files for a document. The text is scattered literally at random
amongst the files. And there's no guarantee that it's in any particular
order: Word write shorthand notes to itself. It doesn't assemble them into
a coherent "document" until you officially save. You obviously can't use
Word to open the file (because it will delete the files if you start it...)
And of course, if you have closed the file then reopened a different one,
the temporary file is not there at all

Quite frankly, I'm glad to know that there are still a few remaining
bastions of personal responsibility

If you had a memory like mine, you'd be a lot less enthusiastic about that
"personal responsibility bit"

Cheers

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

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[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Phillip:

Word's Temp files will all be in the System Tmp directory unless the user
has been "fiddling" That folder is normally "Hidden" in Mac OS X.

These days, Word should clean up its AutoRecover files on startup. It can't
save anything when it crashes, because it has crashed. It saves
periodically (the default is ten minutes).

The AutoRecover files are "transaction logging files". They don't normally
contain the whole document: just the various changes to it. This is one of
the major weaknesses of the AutoRecover mechanism, and is the fundamental
difference between AutoRecover and Auto Save (which Word does not have).

An AutoRecover file is unreadable/useless unless Word can read the file the
changes apply to. So if there's anything wrong with the main file, the
AutoRecovers won't help at all: there's nothing to apply changes TO.

The Backup file is a different beastie: difference concept entirely. The
Backup file IS saved to the same folder as the document. It is saved each
time the document itself is Saved. In fact, the Backup file is the PREVIOUS
version of the file, renamed.

If you are editing a document: you Open it, Word saves a Backup. You make a
change. If you save, Word writes the new version, the backup file contains
the previous version. If you make another change and save, Word deletes the
first version, writes the new version to a temporary file, renames the
current version to ".BAK" then renames the NEW version as the original file
name.

So each time you edit and save, the backup file contains the "before" image
and the "after" image is saved as the current document.

When you START Word, it checks to see if it exited normally last time. If
it did, it looks in the Temp directory for temporary files that it owns and
deletes them all. If the "Normal Exit" flag is false, Word opens the
temporary files and goes looking for the originals to see if it can offer to
recover any of them.

Hope this helps

Funny thing is when the sesion is over with I see littered all over the
place

Johnny comes marching home.doc
Backup Johnny Comes Marching Home. doc

I remember years ago I believe 6.0.1.a also had this feature but they
were save in one location. and they were invisible. And with the advent
of Office2001 they save the backup visiable and in excat same location
original is saved. I thought they were to be saved only if an early shut
down. And if You actually quit through the main menu after closing
Document they were to automatically to distroy the Backup file upon close.

Hi Bob:

Thanx - I love it when a rebuttal actually reinforces the point ! You
make my case as soon as you write:

When you hit "New
Document" it prompted for the file name and location at that point.
The user was *prompted*... the naming & saving didn't happen
*automatically*... And IIRC, if the user failed to respond with the info he
couldn't proceed, creation of the new doc was cancelled & the line-by-line
save never had a chance to take place.

I don't remember: I thought you could simply dismiss the dialog and
continue... This is 1993 we're talking about

I got the impression from the OP's first post that he/she expected to be
able to launch Word, start typing & have everything handled for them from
then on [key words] automatically & "the same way PCs have..." - which is a
dire misconception (I also saw it as an unjust slap at the Mac). That just
doesn't happen on either platform - at least not in any word processing
program I've ever seen over the last 25 years. Even those that have an
AutoSave require that the file be 'manually' saved the first time.

Yes, you're quite correct. On eithe platform, in any Microsoft application,
you will be required to assign a file name in order to get your file BACK.

The really infuriating thing is: it actually works exactly the way the user
wants it to. When Word creates a new file, it opens a disk file in the Temp
folder to store it in.

Sadly, unless the user agrees to assign a file name, Word DELETES the temp
file when it next restarts

If you're quick enough, you can actually get at that file. Just not with
that copy of Word (because if you restart Word, it will delete the file!).
And the file may not actually contain much, unless the Autorecover has had a
chance to kick in (typically ten minutes, unless the user resets it).

However, before people start clamouring for instructions on how to get their
lost files back, lemme give them the bad news... There's anything up to 20
different files for a document. The text is scattered literally at random
amongst the files. And there's no guarantee that it's in any particular
order: Word write shorthand notes to itself. It doesn't assemble them into
a coherent "document" until you officially save. You obviously can't use
Word to open the file (because it will delete the files if you start it...)
And of course, if you have closed the file then reopened a different one,
the temporary file is not there at all

Quite frankly, I'm glad to know that there are still a few remaining
bastions of personal responsibility

If you had a memory like mine, you'd be a lot less enthusiastic about that
"personal responsibility bit"

Cheers

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac



On 8/18/06 12:50 AM, in article (e-mail address removed), "John

Hi Bob:

{Sigh} You young pups...

Borland Sprint saved each line to file as it was typed. When you hit "New
Document" it prompted for the file name and location at that point. There
was no way to lose more than a line of text in Sprint.

No wonder it failed in the marketplace: "My computer crashed and lost my
homework" did not work for either the students or their parents...

So there...

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410