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Knowledge base article 66

Automatically saving your work

Ability has two ways to automatically save your work and create backups:

1. Autosave

To switch Autosave on (or off) select Tools/Options/Open & Save and clear or set the Autosave every checkbox and adjust frequency to suit.

2. Backups

To switch backups on (or off) select Tools/Options/General and clear or set the Create backup checkbox.

With backup on, when you save a file in Write, Ability creates a backup of the old copy. For example:

a) Create a new document, type some text and save it (e.g. call it "mydoc").
Result - Ability creates a standard document called "mydoc.aww".

b) Type some more text and save.
Result - Ability saves the old "mydoc.aww" to "mydoc.abk" and then saves the new changes to "mydoc.aww".

The backup file contains the document at its previously saved state. This provides you with a measure of security should you accidently save changes you don't want.

To access the backup file, select File/Open and set "Files of type" to "Ability Write Backup".

Windows Explorer note

By default, Windows "hides" the file extension. If you are browsing with Windows Explorer, you cannot see the difference between the AWW and ABK if the file extension is hidden. To turn off this feature, start Windows Explorer and select Tools/Folder Options/View and clear the checkbox next to Hide extensions for known file types.