How to automatically save Microsoft Word 2003 Documents

Kees,

Thanks for the input.

Yes, Word 2003 does ask if you want to save or not before closing. But the problem is there have been times when the user selects "no" - and all work was lost. So, if there's an auto save every 5 minutes - only 5 minutes of work is lost.

I am going to try out the "Autoclose macro" you suggested. Although I have no idea how to do it...but I'll search around.

Thanks.

That's a macro that's automatically executed when the document is closed. A basic one is shown in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/201992. That saves always and I don't think that's good.

A minor modification is to only save the document if it has been changed since the last save, like in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/212550. That keeps the original date and time if it isn't changed at all, or the date and time the user last saved it. Still, the user has no choice to exit without saving, and I wonder if that's acceptable.

If might be better to save the document under another name if it isn't yet saved by the user, just to prevent accidental overwrites, which you don't want either.
For example, you could add date and time to the document name and then do a programmatic SaveAs, give a warning (msgbox method, like "The changed document has been saved as Report about proposal 83_20071003_1225PM.doc, because you didn't save it yourself." and immediately exit. This more or less forces the user to save it himself before he closes the document, because he won't like to do the necessary renaming in My Computer himself. That's the risk of answering No if you mean Yes, of course.

I think this macro will work if put in normal.dot and the document is based on that template. But before you invest time in it, check if a simple one line macro like <strong>msgbox "It works!"</strong> indeed works if put there. If it has to be added in each document separately, clearly it isn't worth the trouble.
I can't tell because I never worked with AutoClose macro's.

Kees

Kees,

Thank you for kb links about macros and for pointing out things that may be undesirable if documents were saved each time they are accessed and for the work around suggestions.

You are much appreciated!

ST