Backing Up Microsoft Word
Overview
Each version of Word has its own peculiarities / quirks. This article
will ignore those differences and discuss common features of Word for
versions Word 97 and later. Much of it will apply to earlier versions as
well. We’ll first take a look at the backup features built into Word
and then at backing up to another disk, etc.
Built-In Backup Features – the good, the bad and the ugly
Bad and Ugly
Allow Fast Saves – Turn this feature OFF – now!
It is a holdover from earlier versions of Word where it actually
sometimes made things better. In versions Word 97 and beyond it will
always make things worse, sometimes much worse!
Figure 1
- Word 2000 Options - Save Dialog Box
Merely Ugly
Versions – Treat this with care. It is set under
the File menu and generally should be OFF. It will bloat files beyond
recognition. A better practice is to actually save separate versions as
separate documents.
Track Changes – much the same advice as Versions. Use with
care. I would recommend every once in a while making a copy and in that
copy accepting all changes. Save that copy as one of your versions.
Always create backup copy – we’re back to the save options
dialog. Every time you open a Word document when you have this option
set, it will make a backup of that document, in the same directory. Next
time you open the document, it will overwrite the backup with a new
backup. If you have utterly demolished your document and you realize
that fact before you have overwritten the backup, the backup will help.
In six years of using Word, I can’t think of a time it would have
helped me. However, if I am working on a major document I make my own
backup first. Generally, the undo feature will fix most goofs that I
make.
Good – on the Save Options dialog box
Allow background saves – This lets you press
Ctrl-S to save your document and continue working while Word is saving
the document. Uncheck this if your system is low on memory.
Save AutoRecover info every 10
minutes. Pick your amount of time. This does not
overwrite your document (save the document) but does save, in a separate
file, changes you have made since the last save. This is what gives you
your work back if your computer crashes or freezes while you are working
on your document. The amount of time involved is up to you and involves
a minor trade-off, depending on your system speed. The keyboard will
slow down while Word is performing one of these saves. How much it slows
down will depend on your system speed and resources. You can set where
these backup files will be saved using Tools => Options => File
Locations. (See Figure 2
)
Figure
2
- File Locations Options Dialog Box
Prompt to save Normal template. This should always
be checked. Yes, it is annoying. Smoke alarms are also annoying,
especially if you are a smoker or have a fireplace. If nothing else, it
is good in that it helps you know when you have made a change that would
be saved in the normal.dot template. It can warn you of a virus attack
and can let you know when a poorly-written Add-In is messing about. The
reason that this template is singled out for such a warning is that it
will hold many of your Word customizations.
Backing Up outside of Word – Which files to grab in case of fire:
(Seriously, if there’s a fire and you haven’t already backed
these up, don’t sit at your computer trying to do so, it’s too late!
Go and worry about it later.)
You’ll want off-site backups of your normal.dot file, your other
custom templates, your dictionaries, your AutoCorrect files as well as
your documents. I also keep backups of key files on my hard drive.
Normal.dot – Unless you have multiple versions of
Word on your computer or have multiple users with different user
profiles, there should be only one file named “normal.dot” on your
computer. It will be stored in your User Templates Folder (see Figure 2
). Unless you have stored them elsewhere, normal.dot will contain
your macros, your AutoText entries, your formatted AutoCorrect entries,
your keyboard customizations, your custom styles, any custom toolbars or
menu customizations, and your standard page setup. I make a backup of
normal.dot at least once a month in a folder outside my Templates
folder. I try to keep most of my customizations in other global
templates and in document templates. See Template
Basics for more information on what these are and where they are
stored.
Other Templates – Your document templates – the
ones that you built yourself – are a key resource and can represent
thousands of hours of work. They should be stored in your User Templates
folder and in your Workgroup Templates folder. With Word 97/98 they will
be mixed with the templates supplied with Word. In later versions they
are separate.
AutoCorrect Entries – Unformatted AutoCorrect
entries (most AC entries) are stored in files that have an .acl
extension. Backing up AC entries is best done with a macro that you can
download from the MVP
website. There can be multiple .acl files if multiple language
settings have been used and may be separate files for different users.
Spelling Customizations – If you have stored words
in one or more custom dictionaries, you’ll want to back those up. You
can find out their location by looking in Tools => Options =>
Spelling & Grammar => Dictionaries (button) => New (button).
The default name for your custom dictionary is Custom.dic. You can also
have an Exclude list that tells Word to display a word it has in its
main dictionary as being misspelled. This is a special text file that
you would have to set up and it will be located in the same directory as
your main dictionary file. You can find directions for setting up such a
file on the MVP
website.
Your documents – Where these are stored is up to
you. Word will store them in “My Documents” by default unless you
have set a different location. (Figure
2
). You will want to use subfolders to keep these organized,
possibly in a way that parallels a paper file, possibly in a very
different logical arrangement.
How to Implement
The simplest way is to have a thorough overall backup system for your
computer system. Assuming for the moment that you don’t have such a
system or want to supplement it, you can do what I do which is to set up
a copying file. This can be a DOS batch file that uses the Xcopy command
to copy given files and/or folders to one or more floppy drives or to a
network drive. In my case, it is a file for my Nero CD writing software
that specifies which files get copied to a CD-ROM. These include not
only my Word files, but Excel and accounting files. Whenever I’m
feeling a bit vulnerable, I burn a new backup of my crucial files to a
CD-ROM. Client and confidential data files are encrypted before or
during this backup.
Conclusion
This article has given you an overview of what is involved in backing
up Word. For more details and settings that haven’t been covered here,
you should look at the MVP
website. There are competing interests in backing up files. If it
takes too much time or is too difficult to do, it won’t be done. If
you don’t do it, you will be sorry. Back when hard drives were first
coming on the consumer market (as in a 5 Mb drive for only $2000) the
saying was: It isn’t a matter of whether your drive will
fail, it is only a question of when. Although drives have
improved, the saying is still valid. If you haven’t experienced a
catastrophic disk failure yet, you have been lucky. As disks hold more
and more information timely and automatic backup becomes more and more
important. <<<back to ABC table of
contents
Chas
Kenyon is a trial lawyer concentrating in criminal defense with a long
interest (obsession?) with making word processing work well in the law
office.
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