Protecting Your Data
Frequent saving and backing up is a must when dealing with data that may have taken hours to generate. OpenOffice 3 offers several options to help keep your data safe.
Automatically Create a Backup Copy
From the Tools menu, select Options > Load/Save > General.
Select Always create backup copy and click OK.
Now, each time you save your document, the previous version of the document is saved to your backup directory.
Save AutoRecovery Information
This command saves the information necessary to restore the current document in case of a crash.
From the Tools menu, select Options > Load/Save > General.
Select Save AutoRecovery information every and select the time interval at which you want to automatically save.
Click OK.
Create Links to Objects
To further protect your data, you should create and save different data types separately. For example, an embedded object such as a graphic should be created and saved as a separate file. Rather than embedding the object into the document, you should place it as a linked object. This helps keep your objects safe and it helps reduce your file size. It also automatically updates itself in the document when changes are made to the original file.
Save Often
You should make it a point to save your work several times a day onto an external data medium, such as a CD or external hard drive. When doing so, be sure to keep more than just the last-saved update as your hardware or software could already have written corrupted data onto the hard drive while otherwise working fine. Only when opened afresh after a completed work session will OpenOffice Writer greet you with the message that the file is corrupted and cannot be read anymore.