Contents of Word file disappeared

[Guest]

A colleague who never uses his dial-up account on his new Dell laptop, had
typed in 32 pages in a Microsoft Word file. He saved his work about twice on
every page he typed. Yesterday he switched on his computer, opened the same
Word file and began typing material on the 32nd page. Suddenly the words all
disappeared and he found himself staring at a Word file totally devoid of
input. And it had gone down to being only one single page. We searched his
relatively few files and folders but could not find any copy of the file. The
filename is still listed in My Documents: the odd thing is that when one
places the cursor over the filename, it indicates that the file contains 23.5
kb of material.

We dialled up, downloaded Google and then Google Desktop, but nowhere could
we find any of the material. I do not know if this is an XP question, and it
is something outside my experience. I would be grateful if anyone with some
knowledge of this sort of problem could please advise.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

You may wish to visit the Word newsgroup and repost your question:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.word.application.errors

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

Get Windows XP Service Pack 2 with Advanced Security Technologies:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/windowsxp/choose.mspx

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:

| A colleague who never uses his dial-up account on his new Dell laptop, had
| typed in 32 pages in a Microsoft Word file. He saved his work about twice on
| every page he typed. Yesterday he switched on his computer, opened the same
| Word file and began typing material on the 32nd page. Suddenly the words all
| disappeared and he found himself staring at a Word file totally devoid of
| input. And it had gone down to being only one single page. We searched his
| relatively few files and folders but could not find any copy of the file. The
| filename is still listed in My Documents: the odd thing is that when one
| places the cursor over the filename, it indicates that the file contains 23.5
| kb of material.
|
| We dialled up, downloaded Google and then Google Desktop, but nowhere could
| we find any of the material. I do not know if this is an XP question, and it
| is something outside my experience. I would be grateful if anyone with some
| knowledge of this sort of problem could please advise.
| --
| Neil UK

 

[CWatters]

A colleague who never uses his dial-up account on his new Dell laptop, had
typed in 32 pages in a Microsoft Word file. He saved his work about twice on
every page he typed. Yesterday he switched on his computer, opened the same
Word file and began typing material on the 32nd page. Suddenly the words all
disappeared

That can happen if you accidentally "Select All" text (CTRL+A) and type a
character. It replaces the selected text with a single character.

..the odd thing is that when one
places the cursor over the filename, it indicates that the file contains 23.5
kb of material.

Even a blank word document can report 20kb to explorer.

What he should have done is to hit undo as soon as he realised something had
happened.

In future he should save seperate copies.... File -> save as -> Ver1, Ver2
etc rather than using just File -> Save. The latter overwrites the same file
each time and is more dangerous.

 

[Brandon Taylor]

That can happen if you accidentally "Select All" text (CTRL+A) and type a
character. It replaces the selected text with a single character.




Even a blank word document can report 20kb to explorer.

What he should have done is to hit undo as soon as he realised something had
happened.

In future he should save seperate copies.... File -> save as -> Ver1, Ver2
etc rather than using just File -> Save. The latter overwrites the same file
each time and is more dangerous.

Word has a feature that allows you to "Always create backup copy." To
activate it, in Word choose "Tools > Options", then click the "Save" tab
and make sure the "Always create backup copy" check box has a check mark
in it. Then click OK. Now, each time you save your document, Word will
save the old copy of your file before saving the new copy each time you
issue the "Save" command.

Let me know how this works.

Brandon Taylor

 

[Quaoar]

A colleague who never uses his dial-up account on his new Dell
laptop, had typed in 32 pages in a Microsoft Word file. He saved his
work about twice on every page he typed. Yesterday he switched on his
computer, opened the same Word file and began typing material on the
32nd page. Suddenly the words all disappeared and he found himself
staring at a Word file totally devoid of input. And it had gone down
to being only one single page. We searched his relatively few files
and folders but could not find any copy of the file. The filename is
still listed in My Documents: the odd thing is that when one places
the cursor over the filename, it indicates that the file contains
23.5 kb of material.

We dialled up, downloaded Google and then Google Desktop, but nowhere
could we find any of the material. I do not know if this is an XP
question, and it is something outside my experience. I would be
grateful if anyone with some knowledge of this sort of problem could
please advise.

This is not just a Word problem, but can happen in any application if
the user's palm on the laptop touchpad causes erroneous mouse actions.
It is possible to invoke a single, double, or triple click
inadvertently. Many typists report the cursor jumping, entire text
blocks selected and deleted, and just about anything else injurious to
the health of the document. The solution is to place the hands in a way
that they are clear of the touchpad, or if the design does not allow
this, disable the touchpad or the tapping function and use a mouse.

Q