Unsaved new work to word file vanishes

[Skookum]

I have been working away at an isnpired rate (i.e. not manually
saving) on a word document for the past couple of hours. Having
reached a plateau (still not saving) I decided to move a template of a
table from another document into it.

Somehow without a crash in Word, the document vanished. When I went
looking for it in its original saved folder, it came up without all
the work i'd done today (which was most of it). It is possible, I
guess, that I acciddentally closed the unsaved file though I have no
recollection of any prompt to save changes which usually comes up.

I have autorecovery set for every 10 minutes in Word so my perhaps
overly optimistic assumption is that somewhere in the bowels of this
Mac (OSX 10.3, by the way) is the precious and seemingly lost work.

Suggestions?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

AutoRecovery files are stored in HomeUserAccount/Documents/Microsoft
User Data by default, and their name begins with AutoRecovery (at least
in Word 2004, not sure about Word X). I doubt that information is going
to help much, though.

If you have not yet closed the document, see what happens if you Cmd-Z
(Undo) a few times. Chances are you accidentally selected your doc and
overwrote the text with the table, but Undo might reverse that, as long
as the document was not closed.

Always save. Try to get cmd-S ingrained in your fingers. Also, there
is a Word | Preferences | Save "always create backup copy" which saves
the previous version and can be useful in emergencies (though I don't
find it so).

Sorry not to have better suggestions--
Daiya

 

[Skookum]

thanks any way. The dilemma for me is that when i really get on a roll
writing, that's when I neglect saving which means that the best things
I write are vulnerable. I will try to do better...

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Well, the hard part is only the first time. I find that when I'm on a
roll, my fingers hit cmd-s without me even thinking about it, because
it's so habitual when I am typing now, and that unthinking saving has
rescued me many a time.

Daiya