Just like many other users of PowerPoint, you might have also faced this situation: you have been working on a presentation
for hours and suddenly PowerPoint or even the computer crashes? This may happen due to a power outage, instability of the
system, or even PowerPoint itself may crash. You realize that you had not saved the presentation for a long time and you may
have lost most of your work! Although you can keep your programs updated, system secure, and even save your file often, there
is no guarantee that you will never see a crash again and lose all or some of your work.
Fortunately, you can recover most of your work if PowerPoint closes abnormally by enabling AutoRecover
and AutoSave options. These options can be life savers as they help you prevent losing your precious work in
two ways:
- Your presentation is automatically saved: This type of protection works on a file specific basis. If you
enable AutoRecover or AutoSave, your file is automatically saved at a predetermined time
interval. Therefore, if you have been working for a long time but forget to save a file or if your power fails, the file you
have been working on contains all or at least some of the work you have done since you last saved it.
- Your program state is automatically saved: This type of protection works on the program specific basis. If
PowerPoint crashes when you were working on a file that was never saved, then you will be
presented with a recovered file the
next time you launch the program. You can then save this file, and continue working with it,this is an extra benefit of
enabling AutoRecover or AutoSave.
Follow these steps to enable AutoRecover or AutoSave options in
PowerPoint 2013:
- Launch PowerPoint, access the File menu, and choose Options, as shown highlighted in
blue within Figure 1.
Figure 1: Choose File | Options
- This brings up the PowerPoint Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 2. Make sure the
Save option is selected within the sidebar of the PowerPoint Options dialog box (highlighted
in red within Figure 2).
Figure 2: PowerPoint Options dialog box
- Within the PowerPoint Options dialog box, you need to select the following options within the Save
presentations section:
a. Make sure the Save AutoRecover information every x minutes check-box is selected (highlighted in
red within Figure 3, below) - x denotes the number of
minutes. Also, choose how often you want to save the AutoReceover information, to do so, enter the number in the
Minutes box. Try to enter a small number in the minutes box, like 5. That way, you'll never lose more than 5 minutes
of work.
b. Select the Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving check-box (highlighted in
blue within Figure 3, below). This option ensures that your file changes are not
discarded entirely if you close PowerPoint without saving changes.
c. You'll also see the path location where your AutoRecovered files are saved (highlighted in green
within Figure 3, below).
Figure 3: AutoRecovery options within the PowerPoint Options dialog box
- After making the appropriate choices, click the OK button (refer to Figure 2, shown
earlier on this page).
See Also:
AutoRecover and AutoSave
Options in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows
AutoRecover and AutoSave
Options in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows
