How to Recover a Word 2008 Document
Microsoft Word documents can be lost for various reasons, including if there's a power outage, if your computer freezes, if the program crashes and for various other reasons. You can lose your entire document or just a page or two. If your Word 2008 document has been saved at least once, chances are you will only lose what has been added or changed since the last save.
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Instructions
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Click on "Start," "Search," "For Files or Folders" and type the name of the document in the search box. If the name is not found, click "Start" again, "Search," "For Files or Folders" and type "document" in the search box. Repeat the same steps by searching for ".doc" if typing the word "document" is not successful.
In Windows XP, in the "Search for files or folders named" box, type the file name. In the "Look in" box, click on "My Computer" and navigate to "Search Now."
Do a search on a word or a phrase that is included in your document, or search by the title or subtitle if they were included.
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Double-click on the recycle bin and check for your document. It may have been inadvertently deleted. If so, this is where your document will be. Deleted files, folders and documents can stay in the bin for at least 24 hours or longer, depending on your Trash Bin settings.
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Turn on the "AutoRecover" feature by going to the Word 2008 menu and selecting "Preferences." Click on "File Locations" and choose AutoRecover files under "File types." Click "Modify." Choose the folder in which you want to save your recovered files and click "OK."
The AutoRecover feature may have already been set as a default setting. This is an excellent way to recover lost or deleted documents. If the feature was previously set, go to the "Documents" folder and look for "Office 2008 Autorecovery" or do a search on "Autorecovery." This will give you the path to the folder.
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Go to "Tools" and "Word Options" and place a check in the box to the left of "Save AutoRecover information every 10 minutes." You will have the option to change the this by clicking the up or down arrow to the right. Your Word 2008 documents will now be automatically saved every 10 minutes or at whatever interval you specify.
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Tips & Warnings
Always save your documents after you've typed a paragraph or two by pressing "CTRL+S" from the keyboard.
References
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