I bought and downloaded the 2021 Office and opened Word - I don't even recognize the tool bars - now have to click on SAVE under file to even save a file you are working on.




But that is a VERY SMALL PROBLEM COMPARED TO WHAT HAPPENED.


I have been working on a book for a long time - have over 100,000 words and a ton of PICTURES. Did some work and saved the file - to the "CLOUD" - and closed the file. When I went back to the ALL OF THE PICTURES ARE GONE!!!!!


Luckily, I had another copy BUT I AM AFRAID TO OPEN IT AND THEN SAVE AS IT MAY ALSO LOSE MY PICTURES.


Have used older copies of WORD for years - NEVER HAD A PROBLEM.



What gives and ANY SUGGESTIONS? I am afraid to use anything in MY NEW OFFICE at this time. - jb

Automatic saves in Word are only supported if you are running a subscription version.

You can still save manually to OneDrive even in a perpetual license such as Office 2021.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Just to be clear, when you (re-)opened the document and images were missing, did you open the document in the full, locally installed version of Word?

Note that the online (web browser) version of Word often does not display all images. Usually, you have to switch to the reading view to see the correct formatting.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

I think maybe you're new to the Ribbon, which has been around for quite some time in Office.

Yes, it's a learning curve from the old-school toolbars. But there is something called the Quick Access Toolbar. I think the default position is at the top of the window (see my handwritten 1 in the image) but I prefer it below the Ribbon (2).

You can add frequently used commands and macro buttons to it. You'll see that I have the "simple" Save button there, as well as print, a custom macro button to print just the current page (I use this a lot), the # one inserts the date in text (e.g., July 12, 2022) as opposed to a field which would update, the button for "reveal formatting", and more.

It was a huge learning curve for me as I always built out my own custom toolbars in pre-Ribbon Office, especially Excel. Happily, it's been long enough that I don't really miss it anymore. You'll get used to it soon enough.

As to the images in your Word document - I'm not sure what it could be, but one thing to check.

Go to FILE on the Ribbon, and all the way down the left side to Options. On the little white box that pops up, find "Advanced" about 2/3 of the way down the left side list. On that section, scroll down a couple of sections until you find the header "Show document content." Make sure the checkbox for "Show picture placeholders" isn't checked. Also if you've inserted your images in the background, you'll need to make sure "show background colors and images" is checked in that section.

I'm on Office 365 but I think that text is somewhat standard.

How did you place the images into the document? That may make a difference.

Attached Images

qat.jpg (39.2 KB, 26 views)

Tks for the replies but someone please tell me how having to jump through all these hoops just to be able to save a doc when you want - the older version auto-saved as well and worked just fine - or get back the same doc as it was when you last worked on it.



I placed the pics by copying and pasting into my doc I was working on. - jb

Which was the previous version of Office that you were running?

Automatic saving in Word for Windows is still working the way it did when this functionality was first introduced. It requires a subscription and that you save to OneDrive or synchronize with OneDrive.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Automatically backup Word documents by Graham Mayor, MVP

Good idea!

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

There's still auto-save, though it's driven to use OneDrive in the cloud. They still have auto-recover, too. I have mine to save every two minutes. File\Options\Save to get to those settings. CONTROL + S still works for a quick save as well.

See:

• Automatically backup Word documents by Graham Mayor, MVP and
• Microsoft Word - No 'Save' option and it overwrites existing files (about AutoSave)