Help with ambiguous Excel for Mac error message?
July 9, 2015 7:18 PM   Subscribe

My other half uses Excel for Mac (14.4.3) to help with work scheduling. When he went to open his treasured scheduling file today for the first time in a few months he got the message "Excel saved changes to the file before the application quit unexpectedly. Do you want to open the last saved version of the file?" What do the choices "cancel" and "open?" mean in this circumstance?

If he hits "Open," will it open the last version *he* saved or the changes that the error message says Excel saved? He is concerned about losing work he has done and possibly not saved, and is worried he will make the wrong choice and not get the option to make the right one.
posted by charmedimsure to Technology (4 answers total)
 
When in doubt, "cancel" is often a safe option. Could he duplicate the file or email the file to experiment with opening on another computer?
posted by Goblin Barbarian at 7:49 PM on July 9, 2015


"Open" most likely refers to the version Excel automatically saved, which would be a more recent than the version he explicitly saved.

"Cancel" probably discards the automatically saved version.

If you want to compare the two versions, you can click "Open", then "Save As..." under a different name. Then you should have two copies of the document, the one he saved, and the one that was automatically saved (now under a new name when you did Save As).

[Note: I have no specific experience with Excel, but I'm pretty sure I know what's going on here, since it's a common scenario with apps that have autosave. Excel is just using shitty wording picked by a programmer not a UX person, because it only happens in rare circumstances.]
posted by ryanrs at 8:46 PM on July 9, 2015


If he saved a copy of it, then what is the harm in checking to see what version the Mac autosaved? He can always exit and get the version he saved. Or he can save the one the Mac gives him. Maybe say open and then save it as filename 2 and compare.
posted by AppleTurnover at 9:25 PM on July 9, 2015


ryanrs is right; clicking Open will open the version of the file that Excel automatically saved. Your partner can then open the version of the file that he last saved and compare the two files to see the differences. He can safely discard the auto-saved version after that.
posted by neushoorn at 12:03 AM on July 10, 2015


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