Document content missing

Question

Split from this thread.

On 4 or 5 occasions, including this morning.  I had saved a document, plus it was automatically saving.  When I got ready to upload the document it said it was in a docm form, so the I could not load the document.  I did save as word for word 2013, when I opened it again all of my work, except the title page and one reference on the reference page had disappeared.  I had this problem when I first installed office 2013, so in the past I had been very cautious and didn't save on my portable drive.  I have looked everywhere but nothing shows up in any locations and it doesn't even have the option to restore the previous version.

Answer 1

May I start by saying I have no idea what happened to your document, however I was attracted by your comment "plus it was automatically saving".

No version of Word automatically saves the document!

You could use a macro to automatically save, e.g. http://www.gmayor.com/automatically_backup.htm  but the only 'autosave' is of recovery information and that only occurs in the event of a crash.

I would also urge you to check the option box to automatically create a backup.

If you display filename extensions (and also hidden files) in Windows Explorer, you may have better indication of what is happening with your filing system, as then it is less difficult to confuse macro enabled formats with macro free formats, and to confuse templates with documents. You can also check for the presence of unwanted lock files - http://www.gmayor.com/what\_to\_do\_when\_word\_crashes.htm   

If you used SaveAs to save to another format, the original format document should remain, even if inadvertently you managed to delete text from the document before that save.

Open what remains of your document and click File > Manage Versions to see if there are any other versions of your document recorded.