If you have *saved* several times, the last saved version will be on your
hard drive. However there is no autosave function in Word and the
autorecover is hit and miss, especially with older Word versions than 2003.
The temporary files do not necessarily hold a copy of the document. They are
merely Word's working files.

When you have satisfied yourself that there is nothing to be gleaned from
these files, see http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm

You might like to investigate Windows hibernation to save leaving your PC on
overnight with unsaved work!

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org



chokletghost wrote:
I've lost saved work! I was working on an important set of essays
last night, saving repeated times, and went to bed without closing the
Word program. The power went out, and in the morning I had to turn my
computer on again because it was turned off. I've opened up the
document again, only to find the original version of the document I
started from, alongside multiple transparent files with names like
~WRL2479.tmp and I am unable to put the two together. I know
Microsoft Word creates a "ghost-like" temporary file each time an
open document is saved, but I don't know how to manually make use of
it. Is there a way to open up the AutoRecover sidebar to decode
these temporary files? I've succeeded in opening them up in Notepad,
but all there is is a bunch of symbols and the original writing. I
need to resurrect the changes!