To insure against data loss due to computer and power failures, Office saves files on its own every ten minutes. These files are saved in an AutoRecovery file. After your computer fails, you can try to recover some of the work you lost by getting it from the AutoRecovery file.
Office saves AutoRecovery files every ten minutes, but if you want the program to save the files more or less frequently, you can change the AutoRecovery setting. Auto-recovering taxes a computer’s memory.
If your computer is sluggish, consider making AutoRecovery files at intervals longer than ten minutes; if your computer fails often and you’re worried about losing data, make AutoRecovery files more frequently.
Follow these steps to tell Office how often to save data in an AutoRecovery file:
- Click the Office button and choose Options on the drop-down list. The Options dialog box appears.
- Select the Save category.
- Enter a Minutes setting in the Save AutoRecover Information Every box.
- Click OK.
How to recover Document When Disaster strikes:
After your computer fails and you restart an Office program, you see the Document Recovery task pane with a list of files that were open when the failure occurred:
AutoSave files are files that Office saves as part of its AutoRecovery procedure.
Original files are files that you save by clicking the Save button.
The Document Recovery task pane tells you when each file was saved. By studying the time listings, you can tell which version of a file — the AutoRecovery file or the file you saved — is most up to date.
Open the drop-down list for a file and choose one of these options:
- Open: Opens the file so that you can examine it. If you want to keep it, click the Save button.
- Save As: Opens the Save As dialog box so that you can save the file under a different name. Choose this command to keep a copy of the recovered file on hand in case you need it.
- Delete: Deletes the AutoRecovery file (this command is available with AutoRecovery files, not files that you save on your own).
- Show Repairs: Shows repairs made to the file (for use with repaired Word documents).
