MS Word - save / undo question

Am I going mad??

When working on a word (.doc) document, the undo feature is available to make corrections.

Now, if I add some info to a word document and then do a save with the document open shouldn’t the undo option from this ‘new’ save now be unavailable and the undo icon become greyed out……

The thing is that my undo option is always available even after a 'new' with the word doc open. I am pretty sure that when using word before the undo option would not work from a save.

Hope I have explained myself clearly

Can someone who is a word wiz help please.

 

What version?

 

Word 2000

 

Regardless of your windows or software version

choosing to save the doc is final and can not be undone.

but once you choose save the undo your last action button erases its memory of all your previous actions.

there are a few other actions it is not designed to undo as for why the button greys out for some and not all - no clue example if you simply open a blank doc youll notice the button is not grey even though the undo button is not designed to undo/close the blank doc

 

Ok let me give you an example.

1. I open a new / blank word doc
2. Type a sentence into it and then save it ie File>Save As and select a name and location.
3. Now the word doc is still open but the undo key has not greyed out and is still functional.
4. Now if I close this same word doc I am not prompted to save the .doc file
5. If I reopen the same .doc file, the document is fine and saved as it should be and the undo button is greyed out.
6. With this document open if I add another sentence and save by way of the save icon in the tool bar, the undo button remains 'live' and is not 'greyed out' ie the undo history is not removed.

I am sure that previously the undo history would be deleted after a save and now it is not.

I have just opened a blank / new .doc, the undo icon in the tool bar is greyed out, but you are saying it shouldn't be...

Any further thoughts.

 

I have Word 2003 and it works exactly as you describe in 1-6. So I don't think your version is working strangely.

Being able to undo typing/pasting after saving could be useful if you wanted to save various drafts with a different final paragraph for example. If you did use undo after saving as in step 4 then you would be prompted to save the file again or choose a new name or neither. I don't think there is anything wrong. But, I am a casual user of Word.

 

Many thanks for your reply sach2. At least I know that the undo function works similarly in the 2003 version.

I was sure that previously word's undo history was cleared when saving a .doc by way of hitting the save file icon on the toolbar and made the undo icon turn grey.

Obviously, I am mistaken and apparently going mad to boot.

Many thanks

 

No-one's going mad - most Microsoft Office programs grey out the undo after a Save but Word doesn't. As far as I know, which version of Office you're running doesn't affect which programs grey out and which don't. Word doesn't grey out but as far as I know, all the others do. Haven't used FrontPage for ages and can't remember about that one but Excel, Publisher and PowerPoint all grey out after a save.

Access isn't really relevant to this discussion because it behaves like most database programs and asks if you want to save Design changes and automatically saves data changes.

 

I read you are back...seriously concerned and obviously certain MS Word undo button MUST BE DISFUNCTIONAL, since it does not grey out after a save function since all other MS software programs do....

Again, relax, if you had followed MY ADVICE opened and existing word document typed a new word any where in it and then saved it I...as I have just performed this task for myself the undo button in MS Word will ONLY allow you to undo up to 4 previous additions/changes. NOTE: YOU HAVE TO SAVE AND CLOSE YOUR DOCUMENT IF YOU WANT YOUR UNDO BUTTON TO DISREGARD ANY PREVIOUS UNDO OPTIONS ASSOCIATED WITH THE CURRENT DOCUMENT AND IT CANT UNDO THE SAVE FUNCTION AND RESTORE THE DOCUMENT BACK TO ITS ORIGINAL IF YOU HAVE MADE MORE THAN 4 CHANGES WHEN YOU CLICK UNDO YOU WILL BE PROMPTED TO CHOOSE UP TO THE LAST 4 CHANGES/EDITS YOU WANT UNDO TO CHANGE.

As for why this works only in MS Word...as for myself I dont care to be consumed or concerned about it nor should you - type on and use it to your advantage.

 

Hi Jewlzs and Risk_reversal,

Jewlzs, I'm a bit confused about what you're talking about here and whether you realised that I posted the info about some Office programs greying out or thought that was posted by Risk_reversal.

Anyway, I do use Word quite a lot and have done a lot of Publisher work as well, a reasonable bit with Access and Excel and at least dabbled in all the other programs. Everything that you have described about the way Word is functioning on your computer, Risk_reversal is quite normal and correct. And actually, everything that you did on a document is still available to be undone after a Save, right back to the first thing you did when you opened/re-opened the document, not just the last 4 things.

When I commented about other programs greying out, I accidentally failed to mention that if you've been using one of the other programs that does grey out after a Save, you may have been used to that and not noticed that Word doesn't do that and why you, Risk_reversal, felt like you must be going mad. Jewlzs, this may be where you understandably came up with something other than what I had intended to convey.

Just to complete the record on greying out as much as I can remember at the moment:

--Publisher allows you to set the number of undos but I can't remember if there is an upper limit that you can't go beyond.
--Excel mixes up the undo history from all open workbooks rather than keeping a separate history for each open workbook.
--Word keeps a separate history for each open document.
--Excel (and possibly the other programs that grey out after a Save) won't wipe the undo history if there is more than one workbook open UNTIL all of those open workbooks are saved. So if you had one workbook open with nothing more than one cell filled and never saved that, you would force Excel to keep the undo history available until you quit Excel. Whether the history would go right back to when you opened Excel, I'm not sure.
--All newly opened Word documents have greyed out undo and redo buttons.
--As stated by someone else (Jewlzs?), if you close a document and reopen it, the undo history will have been cleared and you start with greyed out buttons again.
--Jewlzs is quite correct in saying that there are things which the undo button can't do although I can't offhand think of any examples. My vague recollection is that most straight forward word processing wouldn't find those examples.

Jewlzs, if you do only get 4 undo options after a Save, I'm a little puzzled. As far as I know, there isn't an option to set the number of undos to be kept in the history after a Save, although I haven't ever gone looking for one, I admit. I do however, tend to poke around the menus figuring out what everything is and don't remember ever finding one. Unless you're using Word '97, I don't see why that would be.

Anyway, plenty here for those interested enough, too much for those only mildly interested and time to finish this post either way!

Chookers.