A big mistake people often making in working with Outlook e-mail attachments is, working directly on the attachment instead of saving it first. Yes, it’s a few more steps, but I have actually had clients lose hours of work by making this one mistake. If you have the attachment open, then click off of it onto another e-mail task, you will get a warning message. Ignore that warning at your own peril! The correct procedure is as follows:
1. Save the attachment into a folder, i.e., “Documents”
2. Open it separately and make your changes.
3. Re-attach it to your reply e-mail or to a new e-mail.
If this happens to you, it’s possible to recover your changes, but it’s not guaranteed. Be safe: work on your attached documents separately and save yourself a big headache!