Ok, so I am typing away, no problem, and I have no idea what the hell I did because POOF my whole paper just disappeared. Its just a blank gray screen, nothing there. Not an empty page, just nothing. No option to hit "back" or undo.

WTF... this is hours of work!!!

Can anyone help? I think its 365

Was Word set for automatic backup (e.g., like every 15 minutes)? If so, there should be a directory word saves the document to.

Go into Word Options, under "Save".

Isn't there an "undo" button on word?

Ctrl + Z to undo.

Ctrl + S to save.

I haven't lost a word doc in years. Even if the program crashes, word will open a "recovery" version of the file the next time you open it. Assuming you have a recent-ish version of word... 2010 or later I think.

But generally speaking, you should be hitting Ctrl+S periodically while working on your document to make sure you have a saved copy.

My wife’s laptop would do that occasionally. No rhyme or reason. I refuse to use it for word documents now.

Never did figure it out. It would have been a destroyed laptop if I had kept trying it.

Sorry that I don’t have an answer for you though. I feel your pain.

Was it a Word doc opened directly from an email? If so you probably can't recover it.

AS.A.LAST.RESORT... reboot your computer and start up Word. It may try to recover your file. LAST.RESORT!

Autosave

https://support.office.com/en-...40-b5f6-ae6e8088f7a5

Did you perchance accidentally hit a different button on your toolbar and it pulled up a page from a different application? (That happens to me sometimes.) When I hit the Word button again, my page comes back with all the contents.

flashguy

Maybe opened up a new document with an accidental control-N?

If that's what happened, your original doc would be in a window underneath.

Microsoft has (at a minimum) two ways for ANY function. Try the owners manual (or online version) or like I do, ask Google.

Tinyman

I would try doing a search for *.doc or *.docx files and hopefully you’ll see one with today’s date.

I try to remember to always name my word/excel documents right away when I start with a blank document/sheet.

Good luck.

Check your local user Temp folder for a document with a similar name but with a ~ at the begining. It might be hidden.

Not sure you can restore it straightaway but you might be able to rename it with the right extension and no ~.

Good luck.

0-0

Ok I have no clue WTF I did. The screen just went blank and my document disappeared. All of the header options were grayed out.

There were no recent documents when I checked the document manager. I opened a new word document, and there were no recent documents there either. I closed the new word document and the old one disappeared entirely, there wasn't even a window for it. I went back in the folder where I had the original i had been working on and it was there, saved.

WTF????? I was just typing. I'm happy it's there and saved but what the hell?

Always "Save" any word document (or "Save as" for copies/edit versions) before you type the first character, then hit CTRL+S, every few lines as a habit.

This helps prevent "overwriting" an original version that you may want to keep "as was". It also helps for those times Word or Windows walks out the door without saying "bye".

The autosave is a nice feature, but with 0365, I have seen situations where Office apps "update" while you in the middle of something and screws your pooch while your sitting there having your "man-love" session with Mr. Gates.

See if any of these help.

https://www.acronis.com/en-us/...cover-word-document/

I just Googled and picked the first option. You might try some others.