It depends somewhat on how it was overwritten and what your sister's Save
Options settings are.
1. If she has "Always create backup copy" checked on the Save tab of Tools |
Options, then she has some hope.
2. If (1) is true and your sister opened the file, accidentally (or
intentionally) deleted all the content, and used Save when she meant to use
Save As, then she's in great shape. She should look for the "Backup of
<filename>.wbk" file, which will be the previous version (with all the
content). She'll need to display All Files in File Open in order to find it
(it will be in the same folder as the document itself).
3. If she created a new blank document and saved it under the name of an
existing document, there is still some hope if (1) is true. If the existing
document had been saved fairly frequently, then the "Backup of
<filename>.wbk" file, which is the version before the latest one, may
contain most of the same content.
For the future, you might make these suggestions to your sister:
1. If she doesn't have the backup option enabled, she should enable it. If
it rescues her just once in a great while in a situation such as this, it's
worth the effort of periodically clearing out the buildup of backup files.
For more, see
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/AutomaticSave.htm
2. If she's using existing documents as templates, she must be extremely
vigilant about how she saves them. There are better alternatives, though. If
she's clearing out old content before saving, then it sounds like the
existing document is a good candidate for a true template; see
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart1.htm. If
she's building new documents on old ones (reusing the content), then Word
2002 and above offer the option (in the New Document task pane) to create a
new document from an existing document. When you do this, the document is
opened as Document# so that you are forced to Save As and can't
inadvertently save it under the old filename.
3. Whenever a save mistake of this nature is made, the true secret is *not
to close the file.* You can Undo back to the point where you started, resave
the document under the original filename, thus reversing the damage, then
Save As under a new filename and Redo to restore the changed content
(believe me, I've done this a time or two!).
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
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