How to Protect Microsoft Office Documents - Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Publisher
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Retrospect protects your entire computer out of the box. To only protect Microsoft Office documents, we will walk through creating a rule to identify only Microsoft Office documents, creating a script for it, running a backup, restoring a file from the backup, and transferring to a different set.
We have included instructions for both Retrospect for Mac and Retrospect for Windows, as Windows and Mac systems run Microsoft Office.
Creating a Rule
We'll create a rule to identify only Microsoft Office documents.
Retrospect for Windows steps
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Open "Selectors".
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Click "New...", use "Microsoft Office" as the title, and click "OK".
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Add the following rules:
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Microsoft Word: File name ends with ".docx"
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Microsoft Excel: File name ends with ".xlsx"
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Microsoft PowerPoint: File name ends with ".pptx"
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Microsoft Access: File name ends with ".accdb"
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Microsoft Publisher: File name ends with ".pub"
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Click "Save".
Retrospect for Mac steps
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Open "Preferences" and select "Rules".
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Click the "+" button to create a new rule, title it "Microsoft Office", and add the following rules:
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Microsoft Word: File name ends with ".docx"
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Microsoft Excel: File name ends with ".xlsx"
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Microsoft PowerPoint: File name ends with ".pptx"
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Microsoft Access: File name ends with ".accdb"
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Microsoft Publisher: File name ends with ".pub"
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Click "Add".
There are a number of other current extensions as well as legacy extensions. See Wikipedia for a complete list.
Backing up Microsoft Office documents
Retrospect for Windows steps
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Click "Backup".
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Select the appropriate source and destination.
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Click "Selecting" and select "Microsoft Office" then click "OK".
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Click "Backup".
Retrospect for Mac steps
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Select "Scripts" and click the "+" button.
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Select "Backup" and add an appropriate script name.
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In the script, select the appropriate source and media set.
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Finally, under "Rules", select "Microsoft Office".
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Click "Save".
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Click "Run".
Restoring Microsoft Office documents
Retrospect for Windows steps
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Click "Restore".
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Select the appropriate backup set and snapshot.
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Step through the other options.
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On the final screen, select the files you want to restore.
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Click "Restore".
Retrospect for Mac steps
We will perform a quick restore with the Restore Assistant.
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Click "Restore Assistant".
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Click "Restore selected files and folders".
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Select the recent backup. Click "Browse" to select an individual document you want to restore.
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Select a destination for it. This can be its original location or inside a new folder.
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Select an appropriate policy for overwriting corresponding files.
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Click "Start Now".
Transferring Microsoft Office documents
We will perform a backup set transfer to a cloud storage location but only including files matching our "Microsoft Office" rule. Please set up a cloud set beforehand, following our Cloud Backup - How to Set Up a Cloud Backup.
Retrospect for Windows steps
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Click "Manage Scripts" then "New..." then "Transfer Backup Set".
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Select the appropriate source and destination.
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Click "Selecting" and select "Microsoft Office" then click "OK".
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Click "OK".
Retrospect for Mac steps
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Select "Scripts" and click the "+" button.
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Select "Copy Media Set" and add an appropriate name.
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In the script, select the appropriate source set and destination set.
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Finally, under "Rules", select "Microsoft Office".
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Click "Save".
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Click "Run".
Last Update: May 1, 2016