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17 April 2007

MS Excel question. →[More:]

I feel like an idiot, because I know there's gotta be an easy way to do this, but:

How can I revert my document to the way it was when I first opened it? In other words: I changed something, saved the document, realized I needed to change it back, and tried a control-z that won't work.

Hope me!

post by: Specklet at: 14:05 | 13 comments

On your File menu, there should be a choice "Revert to Saved" (I've forgotten the exact wording). You may have to "grow" the menu to find the option if you've never used it before.

posted by stilicho 17 April | 14:38

There is no option that says "revert to saved", and even if there were, wouldn't it just revert to it's state of the most recent save? That's what I've got now. I want to get it back the way it was when I first opened it...

posted by Specklet 17 April | 15:05

Actually "revert" on the file menu is more of an Adobe thing. I know Excel 2003 doesn't have it right there on the file menu. You can just re-open the file and it will say something about losing the unsaved changes.

posted by birdherder 17 April | 15:07

Actually, I don't think there is an "easy" way to do this . . . I sure as heck don't know how, and have wished for such a feature in Word before (more like "revert to previous version" or something).

posted by tr33hggr 17 April | 15:08

I think the only way to do it is to open a backup file, if your computer is automatically creating backups. (Most people don't have it set up to do so.)

And even then, it's possible that the backup was overwritten by your most recent save.

If you were tracking changes, you could do it that way. But if you were tracking changes, it would probably be obvious on the screen.

Don't think it's going to happen.

posted by mudpuppie 17 April | 15:13

Flirt with the IT gal/guy so as to get them to restore the file from yesterday's backup tape?

posted by danostuporstar 17 April | 15:15

Fuck!

posted by Specklet 17 April | 15:15

Assuming we're talking Excel 2002/2003, Tools -> Options -> "Save" tab. If AutoRecover is turned on, there's a very slim chance you'll find a copy of your original file there. There's no version control in Excel by default.

Note that there is some very rudimentary revisioning: Tools -> Track Changes. This will allow you to go back and determine what changes were made to a given worksheet, but only going forward.

posted by eamondaly 17 April | 15:53

MAYBE MAYBE find a temp file?

posted by shane 17 April | 15:55

Tools -> Options -> "Save" tab.

Yeah, that was actually the first thing I tried. The location of the file it gives me is bogus, non-extistant on my compute.

Stupid MS.

Thanks for your help, guys, but I'm afraid I'm SOL.

posted by Specklet 17 April | 16:07

Specklet - sometimes files are hidden "for your own good". Do you know if you have the "show hidden files and folders" option turned on in Windows Explorer?

posted by muddgirl 17 April | 16:14

I'm afraid I'm SOL.
Sorry, but you are indeed SOL. Once you complete a "normal" save process, any back-ups and undo facilities related to Excel are lost. Why the undo information disappears I don't know and have been caught out by this myself (Word doesn't do this, just Excel).

posted by dg 17 April | 19:03

I think it's stupid that it doesn't have a function that allows you to revert to previous version!

Well, no matter, I fixed it. It was my own damn fault for going too fast anyway.

posted by Specklet 17 April | 19:25

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