When you are working on a PowerPoint presentation, the AutoSave option, if enabled, automatically saves your file at the specified time
increments. This way you get to replace your current file with an earlier version. This can be very useful if you want to go back to the state of
your slides an hour ago, or even two hours ago without having to use any Undo option.
Note: Make sure that the
AutoSave option is enabled to follow the
rest of this tutorial.
To view and replace your current file with an earlier version, follow these steps:
- Launch PowerPoint. Access the File menu, and choose the Info option to get to
Backstage view, as shown in Figure 1. The
autosaved versions of your current file are listed under Versions, as shown highlighted in red within
Figure 1.
Figure 1: List of autosaved presentations
If you cannot see any autosaved versions, that might be because you have not enabled the AutoSave option or you have selected a longer time interval
for subsequent autosaved versions.
All these options are explained in our
AutoRecover and AutoSave Options in PowerPoint 2010 tutorial.
- To revert back to one of these autosaved presentations, select any version from the list and click it. In Figure 2 you can see
the version with timestamp of 2:38 (highlighted in red) is being selected.
Figure 2: An old version of current presentation being selected
Note: The autosaved versions of the current presentation are typically deleted when you close the file.
- This opens the selected presentation within PowerPoint. Once opened you'll notice a yellow strip just below the
Ribbon and above the
slide area (shown highlighted in red within
Figure 3).
Figure 3: Auto saved presentation with yellow strip
- Within the yellow strip, click the Restore button. This brings up a message window, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Microsoft PowerPoint message window
- Click OK to overwrite your current document with the earlier autosaved version.
