Depends on the version of excel you're running and if you have the feature
enabled.

If it's possible, you'll see a prompt when you reopen excel.

If you see that prompt to recover from the crash, then you got lucky. Make sure
you choose that want to recover.

If you didn't see a prompt, then you're out of luck.

In xl2002+, there's an autorecover option that you can turn on.
Tools|Options|Save Tab (xl2003 menus)
You can specify how often and where to save this recovery file.

In xl2k and below, you can use the AutoSave addin. This saves the file every x
minutes (user selectable). (Tools|Addins to turn it on)

Autorecovery and autosave are different. Autosave overwrites the existing file,
whil autorecovery saves a different file in a different location. But if
excel/windows crash, then excel knows where to look to get the last version
saved.

If you have the autosave addin from a previous version of excel (xl2k or
earlier), it'll work in newer versions.

And an alternative...

Another option would be to dump autosave and use Jan Karel Pieterse's addin
(works in any version) called AutoSafe (note spelling).

It doesn't overwrite the existing workbook when it saves. It saves to a user
selectable folder. And when it's done, it either deletes these backups (or puts
them in the recycle bin). And the user can always restore the backups from the
recycle bin.

http://www.jkp-ads.com/Download.htm
(look for AutoSafe.zip, not autosafeVBE.zip, for your purposes.)

gem2011 wrote:

Help!!
Just spent 3hours on a excel spreadsheet, I forgot to save the last hour of
work. Then the programme crashed all I can find is the information I last
saved! Is there a way of retrieving the data

--

Dave Peterson