When Word crashes, it displays an error message, restarts and tries to recover your documents. If you see a check box offering to restart, you can optionally clear it.
To send Microsoft a report about the crash, click the Send Error Report button. Otherwise, click the Don't Send button.
Word restarts and displays the Document Recovery task pane, which lists all available versions of the documents that were open at the time of the crash.
If [Original] appears with the document name , either you have made no changes, or you made changes and the original version is displayed along with the recovered version.
INTRODUCTION
Despite your best efforts to close Word and shut down your computer properly, there will be times when something malfunctions and Word simply grinds to a halt. When Word crashes, it displays a message telling you it's done so and politely informs you that you will lose any unsaved work (a compelling reason to save frequently). The next time you start Word, you will have an opportunity to view and save the documents that Word recovered from the crash.
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Sending Error Reports
Microsoft analyzes the error reports it receives from crashes and occasionally provides you with information about how to prevent them.
If [Recovered] appears with the document name, you made changes since you last saved, and Word is offering you the version it saved with its AutoRecover feature.
Click a file to open it (or click the down arrow and choose Open ). Open changes to View in the drop-down list; view each file to see which one contains your changes.
To save a file, click the down arrow and choose Save As . Keep the same name and location to overwrite the original file, or choose a new name and/or location.
To close a recovered document, click the down arrow and choose Close . When you have finished, click the Close button to close the Document Recovery task pane.
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Decreasing the Likelihood of Losing Work
Word saves your document automatically every 10 minutes to allow you to recover all but the last 10 minutes of changes in the event of a crash. If you like, you can reduce the interval. To do so, open the Tools menu and choose Options . Then, click the Save tab, reduce the number of minutes to the right of the Save AutoRecovery info every check box, and click OK .
