Anyone Know How to Recover a Word Doc after Saving Over It

8 replies
Hey Guys, Big booboo this morning. Saved over a clients page that took a fair amount of time researching and putting it all together. Then I done the next clients, saving over the first one and now have two identical for the same client, and none for the first.

Anyone know how to get the original back?

The restore previous version isn't working. Apparently Microsoft isn't too great at creating back up points.
#doc #recover #saving #word
  • Profile picture of the author Robbie B
    Trial and error but got it back. According to the Microsoft support, if there isn't a backup file, then it's lost for good.

    This is what's supposed to happen.

    Navigate to the file you want to restore and instead of opening it as you would normally, you right click and select "restore previous versions". That is supposed to bring it up, but if you've saved over the file like idiotic me done, that option's gone.

    So...

    Open the file in MS word and under the review panel, there's an option to compare. Despite there being one file in the folder, there were two identical documents able to be compared. So there was a backup file there but for some reason Microsoft wants to add to your pain and hide it from you.

    The previous versions show when you select combine revisions under the compare button in the review menu.

    If you run into the same problem, that's what I done to recover the document. Once you get it, save it. When I pull it up now after copying the compared text to a new document, the comparison feature doesn't work. Must be a last chance saloon or something. Don't know but I got the work back and saved myself some work.
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  • Profile picture of the author RogozRazvan
    Or use Google Docs in the future, it saves virtually every revision you make.
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    • Profile picture of the author Robbie B
      Tried. Just don't like change. Late reply - for some reason I'm not getting notifications on replies
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  • Profile picture of the author Riccur
    I thought you said you already saved over the existing file. Microsoft word saves the recovery file only if you never saved the original file, or at least that is what I thought went on.
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    • Profile picture of the author Robbie B
      Originally Posted by Riccur View Post

      I thought you said you already saved over the existing file. Microsoft word saves the recovery file only if you never saved the original file, or at least that is what I thought went on.
      That was my understanding of it too. I can't recall what I'd actually done, but remember trying the 'compare' feature in MS word and it showed the previous content prior to it being saved over. That's how I managed to get that doc back but whether it's a fluke or not, I couldn't tell you. I've been careful since.
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      • Profile picture of the author Kay King
        This is funny - 6 months AFTER you posted this and explained you were able to get the file back...people are telling you it can't be done. Gotta love it.
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  • Profile picture of the author mdenamul18
    Unfortunately you will never get the original file, after saving, if you close the apps. You may get the files till the apps keep your docs to "UNDO" function. When you will close the apps, it remove any date from the RAM, only fixed will be save in the HDD. You will never get the data. Sorry for that.
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