HELP: Recover Lost Data with Word Version History

Word Version History Video Transcript

Losing carefully crafted Word documents is the worst!

A lost laptop, a dead hard drive, or self-inflicted wounds of overwritten wording changes or paragraph deletions.

In Microsoft Word, the UNDO command helps but only if you are aware of blunder, at the time of the mistake.

Come back the next day and lost data is  . . .still lost.

Or is it?  Can Microsoft’s built-in tool of Version History save you? Even if you didn’t turn it on in advance?

Let’s find out.

Here is my three-page essay on the importance of backups. I will focus on the summary section found on page one.

I think to myself, would this be better at the end of the essay?  So, I write myself a note and accidentally overwrite the summary.

If I am paying attention, I can easily use UNDO to fix this “stupid me” mistake.

Ok, for our tutorial I will undo the undo.

Now I lose the snap UNDO capability once I close the document and exit out of Word.

Undo is worthless now.

I start Word up the next day, and pull up the same document, I see that summary is gone!

Undo is grayed out and not available. Sigh.

But Microsoft Word VERSION HISTORY TO THE RESCUE.

Click on the file name at the top of screen. Yes, click on the File Name.

And you will uncover the secret VERSION HISTORY . . .

Click it. And list of past document versions will pop up on the right side of your screen.

Here I have about a dozen versions of this one document that were captured automatically by Word.

When I click on one version back in time, magic happens.

The Summary returns and a sigh of relief.

Hey, don’t leave this tutorial yet, there are still issues and dangerous potholes ahead.

Such as I can no longer edit the recovered document.

See how all the ribbon commands are grayed out?  I cannot make any changes.

Why?

Because we are in READ ONLY mode.

It is a safety mechanism to keep us from messing up even more.

If I want to commit the uncovered changes from the earlier version, I need to click RESTORE.

And now I can get back to work.

Hi, this is Les from Power Up Training. Let’s see how to leverage Word’s Version History with some pro power tips to maximize the capabilities.

Learn it now, before a disaster hits.

Let’s start from the beginning, with a blank, unsaved Word document.

I will type in a title.

And let’s go find VERSION HISTORY.

When I click the name of the file, “document2,” I see NO Version History command.

Why?

Well, I need to give the file a name.

And it is required that the file is saved in the cloud!  So, I will do that.

Great. Note that at the same time, Word is now automatically doing “AutoSave.”

These features are tied together.

Now a click on the file name and VERSION HISTORY is active.

But . . . not so exciting quite yet.  Cause I just typed in less than a dozen words.

Since I did activate VERSION HISTORY with a mouse click, Word did put me back in READ ONLY mode as indicated by the grayed-out action icons and the words READ ONLY at the top.

Unlike our first walkthrough, there is no RESTORE choice option.

Cause there is nothing to restore, but I am still stuck in READ ONLY mode.

My solution? Just close this read only version to go back to my original live version. A simple click on the CLOSE Window X and we are back. I will discuss alternative strategies later.

Now I will add some more substance to our Word document.

Pay attention to the top line.  Word is constantly SAVING as we work . . . more on this in a moment.

As I type, note that the crucial requirement is to save the file on a Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage system. This is critical!

Now let’s check our progress.  Click on the file name . . .  at the top of the screen.

Select Version History . . .

PAUSE: This is how it will look if you are on an Apple Mac platform with the BROWSE VERSION HISTORY instead of Windows VERSION HISTORY.

And up pops the VERSION HISTORY list on the right of the screen.

Now we can browse our choices . . . just two at the moment. Which makes it easy for me to demonstrate the basic concept.

I want to continue with my most recent version, so I need to exit out of READ ONLY mode by clicking the CLOSE WINDOW X on the top of the Windows screen or the RED dot for macs.

Pause for a step back in what is going on.

The active document is always active.  When browsing the Version History, we are just seeing a separate view of the older versions. The ACTIVE document is patiently waiting behind the previewed history version on top. Unless I select to restore it, and then it does replace the earlier active document.

Furthermore, as an alternative to selecting one of the historic versions to work with, you could perform a FILE and SAVE AS using a new name, but you would now have two separate files to manage and keep track of.

Plus, your SAVED AS version will start a new with no previous history other than going forward with future edits.

Let me go back to our original version to explain more of the behind the scenes.

If stored on Microsoft’s cloud, then there is NO requirement to turn the feature on.

It is automatically enabled.

This means that all your older Word documents on OneDrive already have this feature working behind the scenes. Just ready to rescue you!

A WARNING: if you save your Word doc to a local drive, the whole collection of history becomes LOST.

Apparently, the version history only exists in the bits of 1s and 0s  stored on the paid Microsoft storage systems. Move it to a local drive and the history is lost.

As you see here, the versions are saved INSIDE the single file, they are not separate files.

Just Microsoft cloud magic managing everything inside your one cloud saved document.

And another warning or more like a mystery.  When do the version snapshots get created?

When placed on OneDrive, Microsoft Word is constantly saving, but not always creating new snapshots.

Moments ago, we had three versions and I did type in several lines of text.  And still the history only shows three versions.

Even if I force a SAVE, Word does not create a snapshot.

It is outside of my control.

Now let’s examine a more sophisticated use of the tool using the same longer document seen at the beginning of this tutorial.

When we last left, I successfully recovered the Summary Section. But let’s explore the deeper past of this document.

Open up VERSION HISTORY.

And I can look back on how the whole document was constructed.  Step by step by step.

Starting at the bottom, the oldest version, I show the single opening line.

Then the next version shows a full-page worth of typing and some basic formatting and parts of my outline.

The next snapshot has expanded my original outline, and I am up to two pages.

Then some formatting changes.

And here is the first appearance of the SUMMARY . . . and headers and footers and page numbers.

Basically, this is a time lapse view of my work from conception to its current state.

However, there are some issues in this document that a simple RESTORE of a snapshot will not work.

Looking closely, somewhere during the middle of my writing and editing, I deleted the ending conclusion.

Once I see that, I can walk back through time, one by one until I find the lost paragraph.

If I go back to one version earlier, I find the missing text.

But I do NOT want to restore this version as I had many, many edits afterwards. And restoring this version will lose all that more recent work.

So instead, it is a simple highlight the deleted conclusion text. Then copy it.

I will close down the historic version and return to my current working version.

When I go to the bottom and replace the last line with my copied conclusion paragraph, I am back in business.

Disaster averted or at the minimum, it saves me from having to recreate the last paragraph from zero.

However, for a colossal mess, this may be too hard to unravel.

And in that case, you should save the two files and go to the COMPARE feature of Word, where the Microsoft tool will show an item-by-item difference between two documents: side-by-side.  But that is for another tutorial.

However, for Version History, there is one more feature that I have yet to explore: SHOW EDITS.

If you select a previous version, and turn on SHOW EDITS, Word will now highlight all the changes from the previous earlier snapshot. It will show deletions, additions, format changes.

You can click the step by step navigation symbols to highlight each change that are tied to that snapshot version  . . like 1 of 43, 2 of 43 and as you walk through the changes, Word will jump to the specific edit change location inside the snapshot.

If you have worked with Word’s long time DOCUMENT TRACK CHANGE tool then this layout will look very familiar. More on that tool will be in a separate tutorial.

So, do subscribe to Power Up Training, so as not to miss these episodes and all others related to Microsoft Office.

Lastly, Version History can be a job saver. But it is not suitable for all disasters.

Like losing a laptop or dead hard drive . . . these can and will happen. You must create a backup plan now, before mayhem strikes.

Consider giving me a thumbs up, and leave a comment in the comments section below if I helped you recover your lost data.

Until next time, go Power Up.