Taking Advantage of AutoRecover and Background Saves

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As all computer users intuitively know, there's always a risk of losing data when you least expect it. To help reduce the risk of losing data, Word is installed with the AutoRecover and Background Saves features activated. These two features work together to help save your information without interrupting your workflow too much. These features can be summarized as follows:

• AutoRecover Automatically stores information about an active document that might be useful if your system crashes or if there's a power failure. By default, Word gathers AutoRecover information every 10 minutes.

• Background Saves Enables you to continue working in Word while you save a document. A pulsing disk icon appears on the status bar when a background save is taking place.

To verify that your system has these two features activated, choose Tools, Options; click the Save tab; and then make sure that the Save AutoRecover Info Every and Allow Background Saves check boxes are selected.

Tip 

Working around the "same name" error when saving long documents  If you attempt to save a long document while Word is performing an automatic background save, you might get a "same name" error, because Word uses the same name to complete both save operations. If this occurs, simply wait a moment while the background save completes, and then save the document normally. You can tell when a document is being saved (automatically or otherwise) by looking for the pulsing disk icon on the status bar.

Keep in mind that the AutoRecover feature isn't a replacement for saving your file. Instead, it's a tool you can use to recover a file after a system crash. You need to continue to save your documents regularly. If your system seems a bit shaky, you can also configure AutoRecover to gather information more frequently by clicking the Save tab in the Options dialog box and changing the interval time in the Save AutoRecover Info Every text box.

Note 

By default, AutoRecover files are stored in \%UserProfile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Word. You can change the default location using the File Locations tab in the Options dialog box. (See Chapter 5, "Customizing Word and Enhancing Accessibility" for instructions about changing default file locations.)

If you experience a system crash while working in Word, Word displays a Document Recovery task pane along the left side of the Word window after you restart your system and reopen Word. You can select which files you want to recover from among the recovered versions of documents that appear in the Document Recovery task pane. The documents are referred to as recovery files, and they have the .asd extension.

To open a recovered document, double-click the entry in the Document Recovery task pane or choose Open in the item's menu. In addition, you can save or delete a recovered file or view repairs made to a recovered file by clicking the item's arrow, and then selecting the desired command.

Tip 

Recover the most recent versions of files  Frequently you'll see a few versions of the same file listed in the Document Recovery task pane's Available Files list box. When this occurs, keep in mind that a recovered file with "[Recovered]" in its title is usually in better shape than a file with "[Original]" in its title. Be sure to check the Last Saved time listed with each recovered document to verify that you're recovering the most recent version.

After you've made your recovery decisions, click Close in the lower-right corner of the Document Recovery task pane to close the pane. If you have not taken specified recovery action (such as deleting, saving, or opening and closing without saving) for each file in the Document Recovery task pane, a message box will appear asking whether you want to view the recovered files later or remove the files because you've saved the file you need. Select the action you want Word to take, and then click OK to complete the recovery process.

Caution 

When you close a recovery file without saving it, the recovery file is deleted—you can't recover a deleted recovery file.

Troubleshooting: Recovery files aren't displayed in Word after a crash

In some instances, your recovery files might not appear when you reopen Word. Don't worry (yet)—all is not lost at this point. You can try to locate and open a recovery file manually when necessary. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Click the Open button on the Standard toolbar, and navigate to the folder that contains the recovery files (usually \%UserProfile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Word).

2. In the Files Of Type box, select All Files. You'll be looking for .asd files, but Word doesn't include a list item for that file type. (If you want to get really fancy, you can simply search for recovered files using the parameter AutoRecovery*.* in the Windows Search Results dialog box. To display the Windows Search Results dialog box, choose Start, Search, and then click Documents.)

3. Find the recovery file named "AutoRecovery save of file name.asd", and then open the document.

4. Click Save on the Standard toolbar, type or select the file name of the existing document, and then choose Yes when you're asked whether you want to replace the existing file.

Caution 

In a couple of situations, AutoRecover doesn't work. Most notably, AutoRecover doesn't recover master document files, although it does recover individual subdocuments. In addition, AutoRecover doesn't save changes you make in the Microsoft Visual Basic Editor while you have a document open in Word. The only time edited macros are included in an AutoRecover file is when macro changes are made in the Word document itself instead of in the Visual Basic Editor.

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