I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard this question asked and the answer has always been: If you didn’t save your changes they are lost forever. In Office 2010 (Excel, PowerPoint, and Word) the answer now is: There’s a good chance you’ll retrieve those changes you didn’t save thanks to the new Versions feature. In the Office 2010 applications, Versions can be found by clicking the Office Button and then clicking Info, shown below.
Note: The Compare With Last-Saved Version option is for Word only.
The Versions feature works in conjunction with the AutoRecover save. For those who don’t know how AutoRecover works in past versions here’s a little background: AutoRecover is for “emergency use” and in the event of a crash, or system failure, unsaved changes are recovered when you restart the application. Additional details can be found here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HP101407291033.aspx (Of course my experience has always been it failed on my most important documents. I’m not sure if that’s a flaw in the application or if it’s typical of my luck. lol)
Additionally, AutoRecover files are automatically deleted if the document is closed by the user in past versions. So if you close without saving your changes they are gone forever. In Office 2010 the AutoRecover files aren’t automatically deleted if you close without saving your changes. Even if you never saved a file, closed it, and answered No when asked Do you want to save changes? there’s a good chance you’ll be able to retrieve the majority of the unsaved content. What you can retrieve depends on 1) if you have AutoRecover save enabled and 2) the AutoRecover save interval. The AutoRecover options can be found by clicking the Office Button | Options | Save, as shown below.
That’s not all, there’s more! The Versions feature also enables you to go back to a previous version while you’re working on an Office document AND keep the version you are currently working on intact! Here’s a screenshot of the autosave versions available for a document I’ve been editing.
I have my AutoRecover save set to 10 minutes and as you can see in the screenshot, I can open my autosaved versions as separate documents. If I need to go back and recover content I added and later deleted or modified, using the old copy/paste the entire contents to a new document and using Undo to revert my document trick is now history!
Note: For those familiar with the old Versions feature in Word, which as removed in Word 2007 and was nothing more than a source of file bloat and corruption, the versions are saved as separate files in a folder named UnsavedFiles under your profile.
Of course nothing will ever replace saving frequently and saving often but hopefully the Versions feature in Office 2010 can ‘save’ you in those time you really wished you hadn’t click No when asked if you want to save changes.
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