Lost file when Word suddenly closed

[frau]

I was typing a report and at the bottom of the first page Word suddenly
encountered a problem and had to close. I'd rather not retype that
page. Is there a temporary file of it somewhere on my hard drive.

I'm working on a PowerBook G4 OSX 10.4.7 with Word 2004 for Mac version
11.3.

Thanks!
Julie
P.S. I know I should have saved frequently, but I didn't.

 

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

Hi Julie:

There's probably nothing to recover...

Look in Word>Preferences>Save. If the first and last items are checked,
then yes there is a temporary file. If you haven't turned them on, then
there isn't.

"Always create backup copy" does exactly that: every time you save the
document, it creates a backup in the same folder. So you can get back to
the state the document had at the time of the last save.

"Save autorecover info every..." saves a recovery file which Word will
produce automatically when it restarts after a crash.

Unfortunately, if Word doesn't offer you a "recovered" version of the
document when it restarts, that means it was unable to reconstruct it from
the AutoRecover file and you've lost it...

Hope this helps (next time...)

I was typing a report and at the bottom of the first page Word suddenly
encountered a problem and had to close. I'd rather not retype that
page. Is there a temporary file of it somewhere on my hard drive.

I'm working on a PowerBook G4 OSX 10.4.7 with Word 2004 for Mac version
11.3.

Thanks!
Julie
P.S. I know I should have saved frequently, but I didn't.

--

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. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[PhilD]

Hope this helps (next time...)

And as a general point, always, always, always press command-S (for
'save') every time you pause to think/turn over a page of notes/any
other time you can think of. That way, if you lose anything it will
only be a sentence or two.

PhilD

 

[Sam]

MS automatically upgraded me to the latest versions of Office a week or
so ago and ever since both Word and Powerpoint have been very unstable.
Lots and lots of unexpected quitting. I too cannot recover any of the
files even though I have the autosave function on and I religiously do
a manual save every few minutes.

I also have odd window behavior in both programs too - where the top of
the window disappears behind the toolbars. In Powerpoint, I often get
into a spinning beach ball situation where the window size changes
rapidly between two sizes (93 and 95% in my case) for no apparent
reason. Only force quitting will fix the problem.

All this behavior is new since the last autoupdate. Anyone know how I
can undo the update?

Latest Mac OS and Office versions.

Sam.

 

[PhilD]

All this behavior is new since the last autoupdate. Anyone know how I
can undo the update?

The only way to "go back" is to uninstall (do it properly, with the
uninstall tool), then reinstall and update to the level you want.

PhilD

 

[Sam]

That's what I suspected. Thanks for your help.

Sam.

 

[frau]

John, Thanks for the info. I looked at my Preferences > Save and the
auto recovery was set for every 10 minutes. I changed that to 5
minutes. The top option for a backup copy was not checked. I checked
that one.

Since Word didn't offer me a "recovered version" I didn't think there
was one so I went a head and typed up the document again.

I KNOW that I should save often and frequently. I don't know why I
didn't with this one. It was a good lesson to learn and fortunately I
didn't lose a client or work because of it.

Thanks for your help!

Julie

Sam, I hope you got your problem solved with the uninstall.

 

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

Hi Julie:

I guess it will do you no good at all to hear that I have been asking for an
"AutoSave" function for the past 15 years.

We used to have it, in Word 2. Since then, they just WON'T give it back...
Interestingly enough, Microsoft Office Picture Manager (one of the useless
pieces of eye-candy that comes with Microsoft Office on the PC) does have
automatic save.

I think they must have bought Picture Manager from another company when they
wanted a photo editing application in a hurry. It is nothing like the
Microsoft Office applications in look and feel.

When I first saw it, I said very rude words, threw it out, and installed
Microsoft Photo Editor from the previous office suite. Then I was forced to
use Picture Manager at a customer site long enough to force me to read the
Help. It's one of those very quirky designs that just grows on you. I am
embarrassed to admit that these days I do most of my bitmap editing in it...

That's what I want in Word!!

Cheers

John, Thanks for the info. I looked at my Preferences > Save and the
auto recovery was set for every 10 minutes. I changed that to 5
minutes. The top option for a backup copy was not checked. I checked
that one.

Since Word didn't offer me a "recovered version" I didn't think there
was one so I went a head and typed up the document again.

I KNOW that I should save often and frequently. I don't know why I
didn't with this one. It was a good lesson to learn and fortunately I
didn't lose a client or work because of it.

Thanks for your help!

Julie

Sam, I hope you got your problem solved with the uninstall.

--

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. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410