Whenever that happens -- accidental save over an existing document -- there
usually is an immediate recovery option, but many fewer options once the
file has been closed.

What I do... the instant I realized what's happened-- I copy the contents of
the current document to the clipboard, press Ctrl+N to open a new Document
window, and paste the clipboard into the new window, and save under a new
file name.

I then switch back to the previous window. I then press Ctrl+Z (Undo) to see
if I can undo everything I've done. Usually, I can (even after the document
has been saved, since, fortunately, saving a document doesn't usually empty
the Undo stack), and after exausting the Undo stack, the document is back to
the way it was when I first opened it.

The "undo miracle" is an option only if the document hasn't yet been closed.
Once it's closed, you're sunk (unless you have the Versions feature turned
on, in which case you might still have hope.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Please respond in the newsgroups so everyone can follow along.
http://www.herbtyson.com
"Jay Freedman" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 05:39:04 -0700, "Gary"
wrote:

Help needed.

I accidentally save a Microsoft word file to another Microsoft word file
with the same file name. I realized the latter has much more contents that
I
need. I have been using Microsoft OfficeXP professional version. Is there
any
way to restore the one that was over written? Please advice.

Thank you very much.

If you had the "Always make backup copy" option checked in Tools
Options Save, then there would be a file in the same folder with the
name "Backup of your doc.wbk" containing the previous version of the
document. If that box was unchecked, and if you have no other backups
of the previous version, then it's gone.

See http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/AutomaticSave.htm and
http://www.gmayor.com/automatically_backup.htm for some things you can
do to prevent a recurrence of the situation.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org