Urgent question on restoring MS Office documents

[Tyr]

Real quick and urgent question:

My computer abruptly shut off, and when I turned it back on, I inadvertantly clicked -not- to restore/recover the document I was working on.

Which means, from my last save point, I lost about 5 pages of work. Is there any way, any backup place that the document might be stored, that I can manually recover?

[Kross]

Go to Tools > Options

Click on the "File Locations" tab.

Check where the restored documents (Auto-recover files) are stored and maybe a Temp file is still there from your recent document.

If it's not there, check the other folder locations for a temp file.

If that doesn't work try to make a search *.wpd.

Hope you find it

[Tyr]

I couldn't find "File Locations" in the tools->options,


I don't know if i clarified, but its a powerpoint document -- I tried *.ppt as well, and I couldn't find anything.

Is there some specific area of the temp folder the auto-recovery saves to?

Thanks for your help

[Metah]

Yer done champ, sorry.

[Kross]

Oh I thought it was a Word Document...

Try a timeline search for today.

Hang on, i'll try to play around Powerpoint

[Kross]

Ok go to Tools and go to the "Save" tab.

What is the parameters set for "Autorecover"?

Default is 10 so you might be lucky. Just a bit lower you see the default save location, try to look there.

[Tyr]

Don't see it in there =\

I guess it's lost. No worries, thanks for your help Kross.

Mods feel free to lock/delete.

[Devek]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2-UuIEOcss

This will explain what happened.

[Kross]

shit that sucks man, but like ppl say "that's why you periodically save!"

they can go to hell.

Hope you get your work done

[Panella]

This is why I have a compulsive issue with saving when I work on stuff in microsoft office.... damn Windows ME inbittering my soul

[Elmer the Pointy]

Are you using Office 2007? In that case it's under the Home Button and then PowerPoint options.

If you want to force the document recovery thing, try opening PowerPoint and your document, then just do a hard shutdown by physically using the button on your computer.

If it's soon enough, there should be multiple drafts to choose from to auto-recover.

[Lbelle]

can you do the go back in time thing with your computer and it will still be there perhaps? Forgot what it's called, but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about

[Panella]

I don't think system restore saves things more than once a day or so

[Cephius]

I don't think system restore saves things more than once a day or so

Far less frequent actually, unless you move the slide bar for it to take up more disk space, and who does that. Typically it only creates a restore point when you install new software or hardware, or make major system changes.

As for the OP problem, there are a few programs that - for a price - pick documents out of temp files and restore them for you, but it doesn't seem like your problem is that drastic.

[Tyr]

I'm on Office 2003 -- and I can't find it anywhere

It was like 5 pages worth of material, which is ok, I've re-written 3 of it. Second time's a charm I guess.

Thanks again for the help -- but I tried everything I could, at least I think I did.






PS: Office 2007 sucks. At least Word does. I can't stand the new interface.

[Metah]

In before "fuck I lost it again halp"

[Annihilator]

system restore only restores system and program files, not documents and data

as for office, usually it saves the temp file in the same folder as the one youre working in with a name starting with '~'

best way to test it is to reopen your document, make a change and check the folder your document is in to see if a new temp file has appeared

you might need to activate the "view hidden files and folders" option in windows (explorer -> tools -> folder options, second tab)

[Tyr]

Yea, I tried all that -- no dice. No worries, I finished the crap anyway, so wouldn't make a difference now. Although I think I wrote it better the first time around.

[Elesirdur]

Go enable the auto-save feature and set it to save every 5 minutes.

If you're worried about editing multi-author documents and only saving once you have a proper version learn to use Track Changes. Honestly, Track Changes is probably the most important function in MS Word when it comes to business, learn to use it and learn to love it.