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Subject:Re: Large Documents in Word From:"William Sherman" <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 24 Nov 2014 11:56:33 -0500
I've had to work in Word with 400 to 700 pages more than I wanted to do.
Here are a few things I found that help and hurt.
1. Graphics - import them, and always import the smallest file you can and
still keep clarity. You take a picture, and it may be 500 kb, 1.5 Mb, or
whatever raw from the camera. DO NOT import that. Your picture in the book
is going to be maybe 3x4 or less. Rarely will it be more. Use a photo editor
to cut the size. Windows Photo Manager is simple for a quick crop in a
standard format (3x4, 5x6, etc.) and resize (1024x768, 800x600, etc.). Keep
each under 100kb. If you can go smaller and still useable, do it.
2. Links and cross references - try to avoid them. I don't know if they
cause crashes, but docs with a lot of them seem to crash more. It could just
be the size. I have seen docs where they cross referenced nearly every
paragraph. That is just problems.
3. Styles - use them, but try to use the standard Word ones. The more you
customize, the more likely to crash. Customized auto numbering is a good way
to get lots of crashes. This is why I like FrameMaker - numbering in lists
works there.
4. KISS - The bigger the document, the simpler you need the layout. Fancy
stuff costs memory and size. the more you use, the more likely of a crash.
5. Keep your fingers crossed. Short of that, SAVE and SAVE OFTEN.
6. Don't use autosave.
7. Don't select the recovery files or autosave files after a crash. Go back
to the last regular file, even if you lost a lot.
8. Delete the .TMP files that Word produces each day.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lin Sims" <ljsims -dot- ml -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2014 11:20 AM
Subject: Large Documents in Word
Because of various changes at my company, I may be moving from FrameMaker
to Word.
The documents I handle run into the hundreds of pages. I've never handled
a
Word doc over 80 pages that didn't regularly crash or corrupt.
I'm looking for people who have successfully handled very large documents
in Word. I need to pick your brains to find out how you do it. I'm a
moderately experienced user of Word, but I'm by no means a power user. If
this move is made, I'm going to need a lot more information.
--
Lin Sims
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