Can Word save text automatically?

[obillo]

I'm digitally impaired--my hands/fingers are damaged and I'm reduced to
2-finger typing. It's VERY tiring and after a while my movements become less
precise. Eventually, my left hand begins to sag and drag--and every now and
then fingers on that hand graze keys at the lower left of the keyboard--and
the result is total erasure of the entire document. BANG! like that.

Surely there's a way to make Word (I'm using the complete XP Home suite)
save automatically every so many seconds or minutes?

Also: because I have to use 2 fingers, keyboards take a pounding and suffer
a lot of friction. The worst problem is that the individual letters begin to
disappear from the keys--in order of frequency of use I've now completely
lost E, T, and A and am wearing my way through O, I, N, S, H, R, D, L and U.
This is a problem because 2-finger typists have to look at the keyboard.

Suggestions/solutions for either or both problems will be welcomed.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

What happens when your left hand begins to drag and sag is that you're
pressing Ctrl+A, which selects the entire document; the next letter you type
then replaces the selection. Undo will undo this, but if you want to reduce
the likelihood of it, you can disable the "Typing replaces selection" option
at Tools | Options | Edit.

As for automatic saving, see http://www.gmayor.com/automatically_backup.htm

As for the keyboard, this happens even to touch typists. For some reason
that I don't understand, it is not the most commonly used letters that start
to fade on my keyboards but for some reason the N and M. You can use a
"permanent" marker to rewrite the letters on the keys. Sharpie pens come in
numerous colors, including white, I believe.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org