Automatic Document Backup

[Victoria]

At some point in time I must have set MS Word to do
automatic backup of my documents. Now every file has the
document I have created and a backup of that document. I
think this double action simply takes up space on my hard
drive and it is annoying because I must scroll past all
of the backed up documents to find the one I want.

How do I set the computer to NOT make these backup
documents any more?

Is it helpful in any way to have MS Word continue making
these backup documents?

Thanks for any assistance you can give on this matter.

Victoria

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you set the display (in Word's File Open dialog) to All Word Documents
instead of All Files, you will not see the .wbk files. This won't help in
Windows Explorer, of course. You can change this option on the Save tab of
Tools | Options, but I would still advise against it. If it saves your bacon
even once a year on an important file, it's worth the trouble of
periodically going in and deleting all the .wbk files. See
http://home.zebra.net/~sbarnhill/SaveOptions.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi, Victoria,

I agree ten times over. The saddest thing I see in the newsgroups --
probably twenty times a week -- is someone who says they
"accidentally" saved an empty document or some other garbage with the
name of a very, very important document they'd been slaving over for
months, and is there any way to retrieve the original? The only way
they're going to get that document intact is if they had a backup
copy, either the automatic one or one they made manually -- and if
they had a manual copy they wouldn't be posting in the newsgroup.

Do you religiously make backups to separate media of every document,
even ones that are important to you? I'd bet that not one person in a
million can honestly say they do. That's why the automatic backup,
limited as it is, is still important.

As for the feature taking up space on your hard drive, total up the
space used by all your backup copies and compare it to the free space
on your hard drive. That usage is probably insignificant. The *only*
argument for getting rid of the backup files is if they're interfering
with your work, and Suzanne told you how to minimize that.

 

[Tammy]

I have reviewed the site mentioned here and in Suzanne's
response... and THINK I know the answer to this. But, I
am going to ask anyway! Can I change the directory to
which the autmatic bacups are saved??

THANKS!

 

[Greg Maxey]

Tammy,

See:
http://www.gmayor.com/automatically_backup.htm

 

[Graham Mayor]

No, but if you save to two locations, one of the suggestions in the link,
you can direct the files anywhere you want (except to floppy disc!!!!)

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP
E-mail (e-mail address removed)
Web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site www.mvps.org/word
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