How to find the desired document in Word. How to easily recover an unsaved Word document using different methods

I welcome you all to my blog again, dear friends and readers. How is summer going? I hope it's great. I actually planned to write another article, but I decided to change the plan a little. And all because recently an employee came up to me shouting “Guard” (well, I embellished that). She said that she was working in Word and her computer rebooted. And there was unsaved data.

Well, in general, I went to her computer. The situation was quite typical, so I showed her how to restore unsaved document word. Now, if something happens, she herself will know how to easily do this. So what am I getting at? I’m going to tell you about this too. The version doesn’t really matter, but I myself am currently using Office 2013. Are you ready? Then let's go!

Parting words

Many people are interested in the question of whether it is possible to restore an unsaved document. In most cases, this is, of course, possible, but in general I would advise you to just make it a habit to save the document at least once every five minutes. Don't be lazy. It won't take much of your time. All you need to do is quickly click on the floppy disk icon or press CTRL+S.

Autosave

In general, Microsoft is not stupid, and naturally they have provided for the possibility of some kind of failure, turning off the computer without saving the document. By default the program in automatic mode Autosaves every 10 minutes. But if you think that this is too much, then you can change this parameter.



Instant Recovery

If you suddenly experience force majeure and the computer for unknown reasons passed out or rebooted, Word provides a function automatic recovery, just for such cases.

All you need to do is go into Word as soon as your computer boots up. In this case, the program will automatically prompt you to recover unsaved documents. Just click on the file that he offers you to return and save it. Only Word is a strict editor, and if you do not select document recovery this time, then the next time you start it it will not offer this.


Manual recovery

Well, Word is full of built-in tools for recovering unwritten documents. And this is great, because there are a lot of different situations. In general, let's get started with this method.



Return

And of course, we must not lose sight of the fact that files can be stupidly accidentally deleted. So if any important document has been deleted, try to restore it as soon as possible. I suggest you use one of them, but first of all I advise you to use Recuva. It is very easy, free and effective. I wrote about how to use it.


So what do you think? In my opinion, the guys from Microsoft did a good job of ensuring that users return a lost document if they suddenly forgot to remember it. And it’s really cool that you don’t even have to resort to help third party programs, well, not counting recovery. These methods have helped me out more than once, so I think they will come in handy for you too). Although I hope that you won’t experience any problems.

And in order not to lose all your files from such failures, I advise you to view one cool course By backup data. Thanks to it, you will no longer worry about the safety of your files, so in the event of any force majeure, you will be able to restore everything. All lessons are well constructed and understandable for any level of user.

Well, now you know how to restore an unsaved Word document, so I hope that such incidents will never arise for you. And if they do arise, you can always fix it all.

Best regards, Dmitry Kostin.

Have you ever encountered a situation where a .doc or .docx file could not be opened due to an error? Or completely lose a document on which a lot of hard and painstaking work has been done? Probably, most PC users have encountered such a situation, and if not, then an article on this topic will still be interesting for them, since you need to be prepared for anything.

So, let's look at several ways to recover a lost or damaged file. Microsoft Word.

How to recover text from a damaged Word document

If the document is damaged, the user may encounter the following error:

If you have checked and ensured that you have permission to access the document and the disk, and are sure that there is enough space and memory on the disk, then next step will use the built-in Word functions restoration in order to return the text of the document.

For this:

  • Open Word and select the File / Open / Browse tab

  • Find the file you want to open and select Recover text from any file from the pop-up menu. Click Open.


Sometimes, despite the recovery process, the file may remain damaged even if the file is successfully restored and opened. Formatting will be lost.

Another way to recover

If the above method does not work, Microsoft has provided another recovery path Word file. To do this, go to the File / Open tab.

In the window that opens, select your document.


Click the Open button and select the “Open and Repair” option.


If you see the message when opening a document, you should install latest version programs.

Restore a backup copy of your Word document

If it is not possible to even find the file, you can try to detect the one created by Microsoft Word backup copy of the file. This can be done as follows.

Select File/Open/Browse.

Go to the folder where the lost file was located. In the file type selection window, select “All files (*.*).” Typically the backup file is called " Backup copy..." + file name. Select and open such a file.


If it was not possible to detect a backup copy of the file in this way, then enter in the box Windows search- *.wbk (backup file format - Word Backup files). But in in this case The names of the backup files will not necessarily match the name of the lost file. Try opening *.wbk files one by one until you find the one you need.

Find and restore an autosaved copy of a file

If backing up files Microsoft documents Word is not configured on your computer, try restoring the document from autosave files.

Autosave files can be checked in the following folder:

  • C:\Users\ Name User \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word


The name of the autocopy file will begin with “Autocopy...” and will be in *.asd format. Just click on the autocopy of the file and it will open as a Microsoft Word document.

Programs for recovering Microsoft Office documents

If none of the proposed functions bring the desired result, then try to recover the lost file using any of the programs in the package Microsoft Office You can use one of the many programs for recovering deleted documents.

Fortunately, the choice today is huge. The only advice is to choose a simpler program that specializes in recovering files of the format Microsoft package Office. Since different algorithms are often used to recover image files and documents, and accordingly, the quality of recovery can vary significantly.

As an example we can consider Hetman Office Recovery. Already from the name you can understand that the program specializes in file recovery Microsoft format Office. To recover your Word file, simply download and run the program, and use it to scan the disk on which the document was lost.


As a result of scanning, the program will display the found documents with original names. You can view their contents in the window preview. Recovery the desired file Just tick it and click the “Next” button.

Every person who works with Microsoft Office for a long time knows perfectly well what it’s like to find yourself in a situation where, after a long period of work, simply because of fatigue or for some reason, technical reasons the document is not saved, and this procedure can even be canceled by the user himself.

In such situations, everyone automatically starts thinking about how to recover unsaved Word document, because many people feel that several hours of work were wasted. However, if you handle such cases correctly, it is likely that the situation can be reversed.

In the vast majority of cases, there are several options for how to recover an unsaved Word document, although the information may not be completely returned.

Is it possible to return?

Basically, all the options for how to recover an unsaved document in Word do not allow you to recover the entire document. The whole point here is that any Microsoft version Office provides fully automatic saving the document being worked on. According to standard settings Such automatic saving is carried out at intervals of 10 minutes, however, if necessary, the user can independently change these settings in order to choose which option is optimal for him.

How can I change these settings?

To change these characteristics, you first need to go to “Options”, then go to “Save” and set the desired value there. Please note that next to the words “Auto-save” there is a checkmark that cannot be removed under any circumstances, since otherwise you will not have the opportunity to save such information in the future. The documents, even if saved normally, are simply of practically insignificant volume, so you shouldn’t even worry about this.

Microsoft Word 2010


Fortunately, in this version of Word, Microsoft developers have already provided for a variant of this problem, so in this case there should be absolutely no questions. Knowing that their users are constantly looking for how to recover an unsaved Word document, the developers decided to finally make their own, simplified technology, which was originally used in Office and can be used by any user. To do this, simply run special function, which is called “Recover Unsaved Documents” and get original file. It is worth noting that, most likely, the information will not be completely restored to you, but this is much better than starting the work from scratch, and, in principle, now everything is done extremely simply, since even a child can restore an unsaved Word 2010 document.

You can find this item in the following path: “File” > “Information” > “Version Control” > “Recover Unsaved Documents”. Once you navigate to the above path, a folder will open. It will contain various documents, which you canceled saving, but which our caring Word still decided to keep. In this folder you will need to select the file you need. If this situation is quite standard for you, and you are often in Lately canceled saving, you will have to dig further into the autosaved files in order to find the one you need. To make it easier for you to do this, pay attention to the date when it happened last change document. The procedure for how to recover an unsaved WordPad document is carried out using approximately the same technology.

After you open the document you need, it will appear again in Word, and a reminder will start flashing at the top that it has not yet been saved. Now you can see how much information was recovered, and then finally save the document in the folder you need.

Find it yourself

The second option is to find it completely on your own required document in the folder where the deleted data is located. The system automatically saves the document you are recording every few minutes, so it will most likely restore most of it, or even all of it, if you canceled saving a long period of time after you wrote the last word.


Initially, the information is stored in the following path: “User” > AppData > Roaming > Microsoft > the name of the application in which the data was lost (Word). In the vast majority of cases, users prefer not to change this data, so it is likely that they remain standard with you to this day. In this folder you will be able to discover which files have been saved.

It is immediately worth noting the fact that AppData is a folder that cannot be easily accessed, since it is automatically hidden. For this reason, you will need to fully describe in the search the type of folder you are interested in so that the guide can find it on its own. In the vast majority of cases, this can be done quite simply; it is enough to know the exact saving path.

Microsoft Word 2007


In this case, the autosave function is configured and regulated in exactly the same way as in the previous case, so there are no problems in how to recover an unsaved Word 2007 document. If your document was at least once saved or has a specific name, then in this case even after a sudden reboot of your computer, you will be prompted to restore it previous copy. Thus, you can independently choose whether, after a malfunction, you can restore the original document or the copy that was automatically saved by the program during operation.

Microsoft Word 2003


In this case, there are also no difficulties in how to restore an unsaved Word 2003 document. After all sorts of failures occur, you will be offered to restore the file that the program saved automatically, or simply open the original file. In this case, in order to configure the automatic procedure for saving documents, you need to go to the “Tools” > “Options” > “Saving” section. In the window that opens, you need to check the box next to “Always save a backup copy.”

Surely many Microsoft users Word was faced with the following problem: you are typing a quiet text, editing it, formatting it, carrying out a number of necessary manipulations, when suddenly the program gives an error, the computer freezes, reboots, or the light simply turns off. What to do if you forgot to save the file in a timely manner, how to recover a Word document if you did not save it?

There are at least two ways in which you can recover an unsaved Word document. They both come down to standard features the program itself and the Windows OS as a whole. However, it is much better to prevent such unpleasant situations than to deal with their consequences, and for this you need to configure the autosave function in the program for a minimum period of time.

So, if you are the victim of a system failure, program error, or sudden shutdown working machine, don't panic. Microsoft Word is enough smart program, so it automatically creates backup copies of the document you are working with. The time interval at which this happens depends on the autosave parameters set in the program.

In any case, for whatever reason, Word shuts down when you reopen it text editor will offer to restore the latest backup copy of the document from a folder on the system drive.

1. Launch Microsoft Word.

2. A window will appear on the left "Document recovery", in which one or more backup copies of “emergency” closed documents will be presented.


3. Based on the date and time indicated in the bottom line (below the file name), select the most recent version of the document you need to recover.


4. The document you selected will open in a new window, resave it to a convenient location on your hard drive to continue working. Window "Document recovery" V this file It will be closed.


Note: It is likely that the document will not be completely restored. As mentioned above, the frequency of creating a backup depends on the autosave settings. If the time period is minimal (1 minute) - great, it means you will lose nothing or practically nothing. If it takes 10 minutes or even more, plus you also type quickly, you will have to retype a certain part of the text. But this is much better than nothing, wouldn’t you agree?


Once you have backed up your document, the file you opened first can be closed.

Manually restoring a backup copy of a file through the autosave folder

As mentioned above, smart Microsoft Word automatically creates backup copies of documents after a certain period of time. The default is 10 minutes, but you can change this setting to reduce the interval to one minute.

In some cases, Word does not offer to restore a backup copy of an unsaved document when you reopen the program. The only solution in this situation is to independently find the folder in which the document is backed up. Read below for information on how to find this folder.

1. Open MS Word and go to menu "File".


2. Select a section "Options", and then point "Preservation".

3. Here you can view all autosave parameters, including not only the time interval for creating and updating a backup copy, but also the path to the folder in which this copy is saved ( "Data directory for autorecovery")


4. Remember, or better yet, copy this path, open the system "Conductor" and paste it into address bar. Click "ENTER".

5. A folder will open, which may contain quite a lot of files, so it is better to organize them by date, from newest to oldest.


Note: A backup copy of the file can be stored in the specified path in separate folder, named the same as the file itself, but with characters instead of spaces.