Word 2011 document changed to all asterisks!

chscag

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Make sure you've turned on "Always create a backup copy" in Word preferences, Save. That way, every time you edit your document, Word will create a backup copy. Additionally, in preferences where it states "File Locations" change that to your documents folder so that any backups or recovery files are easy to find.
 
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whole document turned into astericks

This just happened to my fiancee, she lost a couple of weeks worth of final year university work, just wondering if a cause or remedy has been found for it yet?!
 

vansmith

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According to this, the problem was fixed in the 14.1.2 update so make sure Office is up to date. As for fixing it, it would appear that you're out of luck (as far as I know). If you have one, recover the files from a backup.
 
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Erm, restarting your Mac etc has absolutely nothing curative about it. I shut down my Mac every night, yet I just had a 10 page document turn to asterisks. My auto save is set to 1min, but luckily I managed to quit out of Word without the error becoming permanent in my doc.
This is a major, potentially lethal (for anyone's work) bug which must be tackled asap. Totally and utterly unacceptable!
 

RavingMac

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Solinvict,
If you are going to quote, at least do it correctly.

I am also surprised that you would go to the first page of a five page thread and pull something out of context.

What you were quoting, and by doing so implying that I was the author of that reccommendation, was a series of background information posted from another website.

To set the record straight, I have never experienced this problem, don't know how to fix it, and only posted it as reference because I saw where people were running into this problem.
 

chscag

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This is a major, potentially lethal (for anyone's work) bug which must be tackled asap. Totally and utterly unacceptable!

Did you read the post directly above yours? In other words, have you updated your copy of Word to the latest. The asterisks bug was fixed sometime back.

Also, as I asked and advised another user, do you have "Always make a backup" turned in Word preferences, Save?
 
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Mac Converting Good Word Document into Asterisk

Mac Converted my Good Word Document into Asterisk. Mac is useless. It keeps asking for money for this and that app. I never had any problem with PCs. I have wasted most of my time trying to figure out all this bugs and glitches that Mac offers. Now I am here trying to find out whether it was me or the Mac. And yeah, it is the Mac useless machine. No one here had figured out the problem about the bug or glitch and how the Mac converts a good document into asterisk. I have read a lot of threads wasting my time and no solution. Definitely, Mac is not worth buying.
 

vansmith

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Well, this is a problem with a Microsoft product, not your Mac. That's like blaming a hole in your cup that appeared while driving on the car manufacturer. If you've got an issue with asterisks, blame Microsoft. And, if you're getting prompts to buy things (which OS X doesn't actually do), then you ought to consider than maybe you've done something to cause it.
 
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I finally figured out the problem of the asterisk bug. Contrary to the Administrator's opinion, that this is a problem resulting from Microsoft product, the glitch is due to the autosave feature that comes with MacBook Air. The solution is: open Word/file/preferences/Save/uncheck auto recover info. Leave only check the following: Always Create a backup copy. Also check Save Preview Picture With New Documents. Also check Prompt for Document Properties. Once again the problem is with with the Auto Recover Info feature. Don't trust that feature because it will destroy your documents.
After you have done the above and you are working on your documents, save manually: Command/S. I hope this help those souls who lost their documents.
 

chscag

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The MacBook Air does not have an Auto Save feature. We have already advised users about the "always create a backup feature". Didn't you read any of the posts above yours? And checking off the save preview picture has absolutely nothing at all to do with the asterisks problem which was long taken care of by a Microsoft update.
 

vansmith

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I finally figured out the problem of the asterisk bug. Contrary to the Administrator's opinion, that this is a problem resulting from Microsoft product, the glitch is due to the autosave feature that comes with MacBook Air. The solution is: open Word/file/preferences/Save/uncheck auto recover info. Leave only check the following: Always Create a backup copy. Also check Save Preview Picture With New Documents. Also check Prompt for Document Properties.
You just contradicted yourself - you said that I was wrong and that the solution was to change settings specific to Word (thus, highlighting that this is a Word issue).

If you're frustrated with your Mac, so be it but please don't shift blame when it isn't warranted. This issue is specific to Office and not OS X.
 

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