Microsoft Office Recovery to the Rescue
Microsoft Office applications offer a recovery feature that can help you in the event of a computer crash because of a power failure or some sort of operating system freeze or shutdown. The AutoRecover feature saves your Microsoft Office applications at regular intervals. In the event of a computer crash, Microsoft Office displays a Document Recovery task pane the next time you start any Microsoft Office application after rebooting your computer.
When you first start using Microsoft Office, the AutoRecover feature is set to automatically save changes to your workbook every ten minutes. You can shorten or lengthen this interval as you see fit. Choose Tools, Options, and then click the Save tab. Use the spinner buttons or enter a new automatic save interval into the text box marked "Save AutoRecover Info Every 10 Minutes" before clicking OK.
Note that the AutoRecover feature works only on Microsoft Office documents, workbooks, or spreadsheets that you have saved at least one time. In other words, if you build a new document, workbook, or spreadsheet and don't save and rename it prior to experiencing a computer crash, the AutoRecover feature will not bring back any part of it. For this reason, it is very, very important that you get into the habit of saving all of your new work with File, Save very shortly after beginning work on the file. Or, you can use the trusty keyboard shortcut Ctrl+S.
Last updated: 2/22/07