Excel: Restore files with universal methods

Quite often, many users of the Excel spreadsheet are faced with a problem when, due to a system crash or the application itself, the files created in it are not saved or get damaged so that they can not be subsequently opened. In principle, in Excel, you can restore files in several ways. Let's consider each of them. Just note that there is nothing particularly complicated in such procedures, and each of the following methods is good in its own way. However, about everything in order.

Recover an unsaved Excel file

Let's start, perhaps, from the most banal situation, when the user just did not save the data entered in the editor in time, and the system failed. What if there was too much information and there is simply no time or opportunity to re-enter it?

That such situations did not arise, it is necessary to give a little advice: in advance include function of autosave. In the future (when the program is restarted after a critical failure), the application itself will offer to restore the file as of a certain point in time. Even under the condition that he was not given a name, which is done at the time of preservation.

To solve the problem with how to restore an unsaved Excel 2016 file, go to the options menu in the open program's file menu, and in the new window go to the save line on the left. In the right part of the window there is an item of automatic saving. The default setting is ten minutes. Specify an eigenvalue (for example, 1 min) and apply the changes made. In some cases, however, autosave can slow down the editor's work, but in the event of a failure, it will be possible to recover most of the data. In general, the possibility of an automatic saving regime should not be underestimated.

Recover corrupted Excel files with standard tabular processor tools

Now consider the damaged files, which for some reason do not open in the standard way. In Excel, you can restore files using a single trick that very few people know about.

So, run the editor and from the main menu we call the standard command for opening files (it's easier to do this by Ctrl + O combination). The window for selecting an object appears. We find what we need, and just below in the window of the mode we select the opening and recovery. The application will try to open the requested corrupted file, while automatically correcting the errors.

Using the Office Analog OpenOffice Calc

It also happens that file recovery does not work in Excel itself. What to do in this case? You can use the alternative program OpenOffice Calc, which is a complete analogue of Excel, although its direct competitor.

In principle, the actions to open the desired file with its automatic recovery are completely identical, only in the file type you need to select the .xls extension. And such a recovery option can not be discarded.

Special utilities

Now a few words about specialized applications, which are originally designed to restore office documents, when they are having problems. One of the most powerful utilities is the program for Excel file recovery, called Recovery for Excel (it is included in the main OfficeRecovery package).

Here, too, everything is simple. Run the utility and click the Recover recovery button, then select the desired file from the list, and then activate the recovery process using the same button from the top panel. Upon its completion, the file can be opened in a spreadsheet editor.

Another interesting utility is Cimaware OfficeFIX. It works no worse than the previous one, and uses similar algorithms. After running the application, you need to select the ExcelFIX toolkit, click the start button and go to the Recovery section. Here it remains, as in the previous case, to select the table file and start the process of recovery and correction of errors. After that, the restored object can be viewed (View button), and then, so to speak, "re-stored" (Go To Save button).

Online Recovery

But that's not all. For Excel, file recovery can be performed using special online resources, which today can be found on the Internet a lot. As usual, it all comes down to the fact that the user after using the site uses the recovery partition and downloads his file. The only problem is that at the end of the process, a link may appear to download the demo version of the restored object in free mode. To download the full file, you have to pay. Thus, the use of such a method for many users is unacceptable.

Instead of concluding

We examined the basic methods that allow you to restore table-based office documents. As a summary, it's best to try out the editor's own tools or alternatives first, and then, if nothing happened, ask for help with special utilities. In addition, do not forget to configure auto-save. After all, in this case, you will not need to restore the files in the manual mode at all. Well, as for online resources, I think that very few people will use them only because of the payment process. However, as an option in the extreme case, when the source file is not restored absolutely by any of the above means, and the information is very important, you can still use this method. What to choose from all described, it's up to you.