Tag Archives: .doc

fixed : can’t find Word-document I recently saved

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Question :

I have some Word-documents that I am working on and now I can’t find one of them any longer… I’ve searched on my Mac, but I can’t find the file I’m looking for… I was almost certain I had saved it, but I must have overwritten it or saved it under a different name or something since I can’t find it any longer… I’ve been on this for about an hour and I’m completely stressed out since I’m afraid the file is gone forever and I need to completely redo it…

Do you have any suggestion that might help ?


Answer :
This is not a definite solution for anyone who has as lost Word-document, but it’s an ultimate ‘stress saver’ (a.k.a. ‘life saver’) for anyone who is used to saving Word-documents on his/her Mac :

If you do a quick save of a document in MS Office nowadays — be it a Word .docx, a PowerPoint .pptx or an Excel .xlsx — Office defaults you to saving it on your OneDrive, even if you never use your OneDrive…

So, here’s how to check if your ‘lost’ Word-document was ‘accidentally’ saved to your OneDrive ( note : this solution is nearly identical for PowerPoint & Excel ) :

  • do not close MS Word if you have lost a Word-document ; the chances of still being able to recover the Word-document are extremely decreased if you close of re-open MS Word since that partially wipes the temporal memory…
  • with MS Word still open, go to “File” in the top menu bar
  • in the pulldown menu that appears, click on “Open Recent”
  • in the nested pulldown menu that appears, click on “More”
  • in the “Microsoft Word” titled window that appears, scroll down the list of recently opened and/or edited documents to find your ‘lost’ file
  • if you have any idea of the last date you have worked on the ‘lost’ file, quickly scroll down to that date
  • when you find the ‘lost’ file in this list, see that ‘OneDrive’ is listed as the saved location, then click on the file name and the document will open
    (if you can’t find it in this list, not all is lost, but you will have to search the ‘recovered files’ first ; this post will hopefully help you on that)
  • when the document is open on your screen, scroll through it to check if actually is the ‘lost’ file and the correct/recent version of it
  • if so, go to “File” in the top menu bar
  • in the pulldown menu that appears, click on “Save as” or “Save a Copy”
  • in the window that opens, make sure you select a location on your Mac to save the document to, then click “Save”
  • that’s it… you now have your ‘lost’ document back and saved to your Mac

enjoy πŸ˜‰

fixed : How to split up an existing table in a Word document

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Question :
I have received a Word document from someone else and it has a large table in it that spreads over multiple pages. But the table consists of various chapters, so it would be more logical to split the table up into smaller tables. So one small table for each chapter. That would make the table’s content far easier to read and understand when reading it form paper after having it printed out.

Is there any way to split an existing table in a Word document ?

Answer :
Yes, there is… and it isn’t hard to do ; if it’s a large table spreading across multiple pages you might even want to split it both vertically and horizontally.

To split a table vertically (to divide it into an upper and a lower table) in Word 16 (from Office 365 and Office for Mac 2021 & 2019), do this :

  • open the document in Word
  • scroll down to the table you want to split
  • in the table, select the cell that should be the first (upper left) cell of the lower table after the split
  • then goto the top menu bar (the one that is fixed, not the one that is floating with the window) and select “Table” (in-between “Tools” and “Window”) and select “Split Table” from the pull-down menu that appears
  • now the table has been split vertically into an upper and a lower table

That’s it ! …and of course you can repeat this as many times as you like πŸ˜‰

To split a table horizontally (to divide it into a left and a right table) in Word 16 (from Office 365 and Office for Mac 2021 and 2019), do this :

  • open the document in Word
  • scroll down to the table you want to split
  • if the table spreads across the page from the left to the right page margin, you will need to make some separation space first, to do that do this :
  • > select the entire table and resize the width a little to the right, enough to have the space that you eventually need in-between the separated tables is on the right of the original table first (in short : squeeze the entire table a little)
  • then, make sure there is at least two empty lines (of no text) below the table (in short : put the cursor behind or directly under the table and hit the ENTER-key 2 times, to create 2 empty lines)
  • then, select all cells of the table that you want in the right table after the split ; they will turn blue
  • then, drag the upper left blue cell ; that part of the table will now start moving along with your cursor
  • drag your cursor below your table and release ; now you will have the split table that you would like on the right below the split table that you would like on the left
  • then, hover over the lower table with your cursor
  • when the drag-sign (little square with vertical and horizontal arrows inside) appears, select it and drag it
  • when the dashed outline of the lower table starts moving with your cursor, drag it to the right of the upper table and release if it’s in place
  • if it’s hard to get both tables aligned, you can use the zoom-slider in the bottom-right corner to zoom in and/or you can temporarily switch on page grid lines (not table grid lines) ; to switch on (and off) page grid lines, do this :
  • > in the top bar of the Word document window, select “Layout” so a blue line will appear under it, then in the icons bar click on “Align” (in-between “Selection Pane” and “Group”) and select “View Gridlines” from the pulldown menu

    That’s it !
    enjoy πŸ˜‰