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

Don Lesser dlesser at ptraining.com
Wed Oct 13 17:19:36 EDT 2010


The Quick Save option was notorious for that. You can use the Inspect
Document options to remove hidden text. I did mention being able to open the
Word file in Notepad. You have to be willing to skip past the high ASCII
codes of its formatting to get to the text parts.  The saved blocks of text
are there for Undo purposes and the file is supposed to be rewritten when it
is saved, which is why Undo no longer works after a File Save. 

Trying to get average users to use real templates (.DOT files) with  just
the boilerplate in them or to use New From Existing so they can delete what
is not necessary is nearly as frustrating as trying to get users to use
styles. You could argue that styles should not be necessary for simple
documents, but it is necessary to know about them in Word because of how the
file is constructed.



Don Lesser
Pioneer Training, Inc.
139B Damon Road, Ste 2
Northampton, MA 01060
(413) 387-1040
(413) 586-0545 (fax)
dlesser at ptraining.com
www.ptraining.com


-----Original Message-----
From: hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net
[mailto:hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net] On Behalf Of Chris
Hoogendyk
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 4:07 PM
To: dstevens at tryandfindit.com
Cc: Tom Adams ~ Reelife Productions & Folktography; Hidden-Tech Tech
Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] retrieving "saved over' word doc

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  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>
>
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