[Hidden-tech] retrieving "saved over' word doc

[Chris Hoogendyk]

  I'm surprised no one mentioned that MS Office documents are notoriously bloated, at least in part 
because deleted and edited blocks of text are still hidden in the file, just not displayed by the 
application. So, if it is a document you are familiar with and you are willing to do some 
reconstruction, you can make a copy and open it with a plain text editor.

We had an experience one time of getting an excel file with a quote for an expensive piece of 
equipment. Opening the file with a text editor, we found remnants of the previous quote to another 
customer from which ours was edited. The other quote was for less. So, in our response, we called 
the salesperson and said, "but you quoted $x to company Y," without saying where we got the 
information. The embarrassed salesman backed down, and we saved some money.

This is a good reason for starting fresh rather than endlessly editing the same document just to get 
the template, especially when there is sensitive data in the document.


-- 
---------------

Chris Hoogendyk

-
    O__  ---- Systems Administrator
   c/ /'_ --- Biology&  Geology Departments
  (*) \(*) -- 140 Morrill Science Center
~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst

<hoogendyk at bio.umass.edu>

---------------

Erdös 4




On 10/13/10 3:36 PM, dstevens at tryandfindit.com wrote:
>
> Hey Tom,
>
> There was a program I used a while ago to retrieve deleted files and deleted from the trash 
> files..... can't remember if you could retrieve different versions of a file...... although I 
> think this software would work.... Let me see if I can find the name of it.
>
> TFI Enterprises
> Donald M. Stevens
> 785 Williams Street, # 142
> Longmeadow, Ma 01106
> Office: 413.209.8333
> Cell: 860.614.4153
> Email: dstevens at tryandfindIT.com <mailto:dstevens at tryandfindIT.com>
>
>
>     -------- Original Message --------
>     Subject: [Hidden-tech] retrieving "saved over' word doc
>     From: "Tom Adams ~ Reelife Productions & Folktography"
>     <tomadams at gmail.com <mailto:tomadams at gmail.com>>
>     Date: Wed, October 13, 2010 9:08 am
>     To: Hidden-Tech Tech <hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
>     <mailto:hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net>>
>
>     mornin, hidden-techers
>
>     posting question from a colleague of mine: is there a way to retrieve a document's previous
>     version before it was saved?
>
>     .
>     Regards,
>
>     Tom Adams
>     413.575.9707
>     Williamsburg, MA
>     Director/Owner
>     Reelife Productions <https://mail.google.com/mail/goog_2146952357> website
>     <http://www.reelifeproductions.com/>
>     • cool digital media stuff • using technology to educate, entertain & enlighten since 1996 •
>     Reelife's Youtube Channel <http://www.youtube.com/reelife>
>     Reelife's Facebook Page <http://www.facebook.com/reelife>
>     Folktography by Tom website <http://www.folktographybytom.com/>
>     Folktography by Tom's Facebook Page <http://www.facebook.com/folkography>
>     Tom's other Links <http://web.me.com/ReelifeProductions>
>