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Can I recover lost text from a Microsoft Word document?

I feel like a complete idiot, but I was trying to copy and paste about fifteen paragraphs of text from a Microsoft Word document to an email message, and somehow ended up cutting the text out of the document and then having my email program crash. The net result is that I've lost about a day's typing and really want to know if there's any way I can recover it?

Dave's Answer:

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You might not realize it, but Microsoft Word actually keeps somewhat of a history of your document in the file, even when it looks like there's nothing there and even when you have revision tracking turned off.

One way you can see that this is the case is by doing a "Save As..." on a document you've been editing for a while. You'll find that the new version of the file, the version that has all the archival data purged, is often dramatically smaller than the original. Sneaky, eh?

Now, the challenge is how to access that data.

What you need to do is enable document conversion on open. In Microsoft Office XP, that's done by creating a blank document (so you can get to the Options preference, otherwise it's grayed out), then selecting Tools --> Options and clicking on the General tab.

You'll see this:

Microsoft Word for Windows: Convert File On Open?

Select the Confirm conversion at Open option (it's right by the mouse cursor) and click "OK".

Now open up the file with the missing text and you'll be asked if you want to use a converter:

Microsoft Word for Windows: Confirm Conversion on Open

There are lots of choices, but I've highlighted the one you want: Recover Text from Any File. Click "OK" and you'll see lots of junk, typographical notations, and other miscellany. In the middle of it, however, you should be able to find all your missing text. When I deleted some text from my test file and did this procedure, here's what I saw:

Microsoft Word for Windows: Deleted Text

The text from "Dave Taylor says:" to the bottom of the page was all deleted from the file, then the file was saved to disk. Theoretically it should have vanished, but it's still there and I was able to recover it.

Hopefully this will get you back your missing prose!

Good luck.

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Categorized: Windows Help (Article 5995)
Tagged: document recovery, microsoft office, microsoft word
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Comments

When I write proposals, it's pretty often that MS Word will catch me in this kind of mistake. I'm glad to see this suggestion and will be pointing people here from my blog.

Posted by: Laura Ricci at March 3, 2006 5:18 PM

I read with interest your article #5995 - Can I recover lost text from a Microsoft Word document?

It doesn't work for me at all, when I follow your instructions and open a file the option to 'convert file' does not appear, just the document as it was when I last saved it. Maybe I didn't make any mistakes for it to convert...

However that's by the by..

I'm prompted to suggest, in case you havn't already, that although it's too late after the event any futurre problems of the type you were addressing would be solved more simply by using 'Clipmate' from Thornsoft.com
It keeps a copy of everything you cut or copy to the clipboard and makes it available in a simple for repasting at any future time (depending on the parameters the user sets for how long /how much stuff is saved).
I also use it as a database for addresses and all manner of other info I harvest from the web or wherever. (there is the facility to 'file' clips into any number of folders, which can be set to save indefinitely).

There are lots of other amazing neat things it can to - thornsoft.com has a good guide - but the relevant killer is that you can even use it as a simple word processor to create and edit text files which are automatically written to disk as you go, so even a computer crash mid-sentence will not result in ANY loss of typed data. You just re-boot, open clipmate and there in it's latest entry is all the stuff you wrote.

Just a thought that you might like to explore the benefits of Clipmate. If you do and like it think of this as my cappuchino to you.

Posted by: Stuart Holmes at March 5, 2006 7:36 AM

hi there ..
thanks alot 4 this lesson ,
but i have a problem that when i open up the file with the missing text and there wasn't any box to ask me if i want to use a converter like the picture u show us !
how can i make it appear ?
and i did as u said :
Select the Confirm conversion at Open option (it's right by the mouse cursor) and click "OK".

HELP ME PLZZZZZZZZZ I NEED MY WORD FILE BACK ..
:"(

Posted by: nourah at May 10, 2007 4:35 AM

My parents just got a new computer and somehow when my mom (bless her poor non-techie heart) was working in Word she managed to make the entire Edit menu disappear. Any advice on how to get it back would be much appreciated!

Posted by: Lizzie at May 13, 2007 9:48 PM

To make it work, you need to save your damaged file as a different format like Word 97 RTF, then open it again and save it back to normal doc.

Posted by: Tommy Nator at July 12, 2007 7:20 AM

I was deleting some unused programs and deleted Windows 2000, I didn't think I needed it, had not been used since 2003, I have been using Windows XP, and now Excel and Word are gone, what do I do?

Posted by: Jenny at August 12, 2007 10:01 PM

Hi Dave - Yesterday my husband somehow accidently deleted all the text in a file and saved the file before closing it. Today when I opened the file (the name remained the same) it is empty! I followed your directions for recovering lost text, and I got the typographical notations on the screen but the lost text (the file had been over 100 pages) was not there. Is there a way to restore the file before it was modified yesterday? Thanks for your expertise and help. Beth

Posted by: Beth Chiatti at June 29, 2008 1:06 PM

hi there interesting read, but can this also be done on micosoft office word documents 2003 - 2007 vista home and student i lost much work and i am having problems locating this work. look foreward to hearing from u thanx - yogi

Posted by: yogi at March 18, 2009 6:21 PM

Hi, I have the same problem, but it happened on a mac. Could i do this on a mac? thanks :)

Posted by: Sarah at June 17, 2009 3:09 PM

Hi all,

I tried the above trick, and it still does not work. I got this far with the help menu of the new, complicated Word... I got this far:

When u click on open, in the 'files of type' u should see 'Recover text from any file'. if it is not the case, the converter is not installed. maybe in older versions this is why no dialog box pops up when opening the doc. so u just follow the instructions in Help, install the converter via your control panel, add or remove programs function (in the start menu....)
unfortunately it does not work, I even made a trial file, with no success:(

Also it is my Mum who messed up the file, she is on the other side of the ocean. She sent the file to me... I wonder if I have to do this trick on the same computer? (sorry, I am a prehistoric IT user)

Posted by: Diana at July 24, 2009 10:22 AM

I recovered my word,excel file but, the file not shown that's actual font that's shows different language ? please hlp me>>>>>>>

Posted by: suraj at July 28, 2009 3:18 AM

I have been using the drawing tool of MS Word 2003 to draw a map/outline of each chapter of my book, one page per chapter/outline. I've been going page by page developing this outline for a few weeks. Yesterday, I went to scroll through the outline and to my horror, 24 chapters/outlines were missing from the middle of the file. I haven't any idea where they went nor how they got sent there.

I tried your suggestion of open new file/Tools/Options/General-Confirm/open file in question. When I take the final step - open the file from which the stuff is missing, I don't get the 'convert file' choices that is supposed to come up.

Sure hope you can help me recover this lost chunk of my file. It's a week's work I've lost.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Posted by: mike croghan at August 30, 2009 11:45 AM

this doesnt work!!

Posted by: wendy at September 26, 2009 6:04 PM

I have a lot to say, but ...

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I do have a comment, now that you mention it!