Word Document Recovery

[Raistlin1040]

This is probably going to be a stupid question, but is there a way to recover a document if you don't save it, like with a temporary file? I have kept a document up on my computer for a few days, and had added five or six pages to it. I closed it today and it asked me if I wanted to save my changes. I thought I'd already saved it, and so I absently clicked no. Then I realized that I probably hadn't, and I opened it up again, to see the pages gone. Is there any way to recover it, or is it lost to oblivion forever? For reference, I have Word 2003.

[factotum]

I don't think there is in this particular case, no. Word keeps an auto-saved copy of the document so it can be recovered in the event of a crash, but it didn't crash, you told it not to save it! I suppose you could try using some sort of undelete tool to recover the deleted auto-save file (it'll have a weird name starting with a ~ character and it's in the same folder as the original), but I have no idea how Word will react when it finds it...

[Raistlin1040]

Yeah, that's what I figured. I guess I can rewrite it because it's really not that much of the total document size. It's just a bit disheartening to lose anything, so I thought I'd ask.

[Jimorian]

[Ctrl-S] is your friend.

[KuReshtin]

I don't have much more to add than what factotum said, however.


[Ctrl-S] is your friend.

This. Very much this.

And I never trust myself with having already saved something, so anytime I close down a document and it asks me if I want to save the changes, I say 'Yes'.

[Capt Spanner]

Sometimes when you open a file it will have autorecovered versions on the sidebar to the left.

If not, than I really can't help you. Sorry.

[Erloas]

There is a backup copy saved, as a hidden file, either in the same directory or in the Word directory. Word generally removes it when it shuts down normally, however it might be recoverable. I don't think its deleted in a way that windows undelete would work but 3rd party file recovery programs might be able to get it. Unless of course by opening the file again it created a new backup file over the old one.

[Data_RecoveryB]

And if above tips doesn't word then have a look on: You can easily restore your content from corrupt word file by using some manual steps. Try to open your damaged word file on other application like "Notepad" and save its content to another word file through copy and paste function. Also check your mail because if you had sent that file to another member then you can get it from sent item folder.

[DataNinja]

Just a note, this thread is nearly five years old. It's against the forum rules to reply to a post that hasn't been responded to in the past 45 days (without permission from a moderator).