Question for Word experts

[Kashchei]

My wife has just suffered a potential loss of weeks of work and we're hoping that all is not lost. Her work was saved as comments in a word 2011 document. When the file is opened now, the comments of her editor show, but hers do not. Could hers still be there and I just need to push a button? Let me know if you think you can help and thank you in advance for your help.

Kashchei

 

[campyguy]

Autorecovery is her best option: https://macmanus.nl/2014/09/15/fixed-where-are-my-office-2011-autorecovery-files/ offers a pretty comprehensive explanation of how to go about this in 2011.

Word files are modified XML "containers" - navigating to the relevant backup/recovery file is key, and that link offers a means to do just that.

 

[chscag]

Very likely her comments were overwritten unless she had track changes turned on. Also, autorecovery in Office 2011 does not work right. This has been well documented by MS Mac Office MVPs. The best protection against document loss for Office 2011 and 2016 is to turn on "Always make a backup" from Word preferences. Autorecovery works right in the Windows version but not the Mac version.