Help, is this document too big for Word?????

[Guest]

I recently volunteered to help on a community project to publish a history of our community, we chose MS Word 2002 to write it in. The book contains about 400 pages. It consists of a Master document and 30 sub-documents of which one is a table of contents and one is an index. We are compiling this "document" on my computer which is a Pentium 4 (3.06 gig) system with 2 gig of memory, 78 gig of free disk space on the F: disk where the document file is located, and 5.78 gig of free disk space on the C: drive where the temp file is located. My OS is Windows XP pro and I use MS Office XP pro. All the techie stuff out of the way to the problem. Everything was going well until we started adding pictures to the "document" (some .png, .wmf and .jpg). The document has grown to about 1.47 gig and now when we try to compile the TOC from the master doc and we respond "yes" to the query "Do you want open the subdcuments before continuing with this command?" it occassional gives us an error that a subdocument is missing and indicates that all subsequent subdocument in the master doc are likewise missing, it also sometimes gives an error that a "Word failed reading from this file (<filename>). Please restore the network connection or replace the floppy disk and retry" . . . the file named is neither on the network nor on floppy disk. Could it be that the 1.47 gig "document" is too big for MS Word to handle. Any body have any advise ???? When the problems occured I sent an error report to Microsoft but we know that usually goes into a black hole or at least I'll never receive a response. I 've downloaded all the patches and I'm at a loss.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news ....
"Master Document" is a term of art in Word referring to a "feature" that not
only doesn't work but also destroys documents. The consensus (with the
limited exception of Steve Hudson) among those offering advice on these
newsgroups is that using the Master Document feature is a sure way to
destroy your document. It can destroy parts of your document that you are
not even working on! I think John McGhie said it succinctly when he said
that there are two kinds of Master Documents: Those that are corrupt and
those that will be corrupt soon. See <URL:
http://www.addbalance.com/word/masterdocuments.htm> for information on the
Master Document feature and workarounds. (This page also has a link to Steve
Hudson's chapter on how he gets Master Documents to work.) See <URL:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WhyMasterDocsCorrupt.htm> for more
information on what goes wrong, and <URL:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/RecoverMasterDocs.htm> for ideas on
how to salvage what you can.

400 pages is not a large document. I've edited 5000 page documents with
tables of contents on a PII. A lot of RAM will help, so will editing in
normal view rather than print view.

Error reports sent to Microsoft never get a direct response AFAIK. They are
for product development and general patches service releases, not for direct
individual customer support.
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

I recently volunteered to help on a community project to publish a history

of our community, we chose MS Word 2002 to write it in. The book contains
about 400 pages. It consists of a Master document and 30 sub-documents of
which one is a table of contents and one is an index. We are compiling
this "document" on my computer which is a Pentium 4 (3.06 gig) system with 2
gig of memory, 78 gig of free disk space on the F: disk where the document
file is located, and 5.78 gig of free disk space on the C: drive where the
temp file is located. My OS is Windows XP pro and I use MS Office XP pro.
All the techie stuff out of the way to the problem. Everything was going
well until we started adding pictures to the "document" (some .png, .wmf and
..jpg). The document has grown to about 1.47 gig and now when we try to
compile the TOC from the master doc and we respond "yes" to the query "Do
you want open the subdcuments before continuing with this command?" it
occassional gives us an error that a subdocument is missing and indicates
that all subsequent subdocument in the master doc are likewise missing, it
also sometimes gives an error that a "Word failed reading from this file
(<filename>). Please restore the network connection or replace the floppy
disk and retry" . . . the file named is neither on the network nor on
floppy disk. Could it be that the 1.47 gig "document" is too big for MS
Word to handle. Any body have any advise ???? When the problems occured I
sent an error report to Microsoft but we know that usually goes into a black
hole or at least I'll never receive a response. I 've downloaded all the
patches and I'm at a loss.

 

[Jezebel]

Technically, the limit is 32MB per file. But yes, what you've ended up with
is WAY too big for practical purposes.

A lot hinges on how you've managed the graphics. Were these cut and pasted?
Some tricks here are:

1. Do everything else with the document before you start on the graphics.
Put in place-holders for where the graphics have to go (eg textboxes with
the name of the graphic source file). You should be be able to get the whole
thing to work so you can create your master TOC, index or whatever. Then you
can deal with each sub-document and its graphics on its own.

2. Prepare the graphic files using a graphic editor. Set the size and
resolution, then SAVE THE GRAPHIC in its native format. Never copy and paste
a graphic directly into Word. a) you get file size problems, and b) you're
in trouble if the Word document falls over, which is quite likely in your
circumstances. Avoid manipulating the graphics within Word.

3. Link the graphic rather than embedding it.

I recently volunteered to help on a community project to publish a history

of our community, we chose MS Word 2002 to write it in. The book contains
about 400 pages. It consists of a Master document and 30 sub-documents of
which one is a table of contents and one is an index. We are compiling
this "document" on my computer which is a Pentium 4 (3.06 gig) system with 2
gig of memory, 78 gig of free disk space on the F: disk where the document
file is located, and 5.78 gig of free disk space on the C: drive where the
temp file is located. My OS is Windows XP pro and I use MS Office XP pro.
All the techie stuff out of the way to the problem. Everything was going
well until we started adding pictures to the "document" (some .png, .wmf and
..jpg). The document has grown to about 1.47 gig and now when we try to
compile the TOC from the master doc and we respond "yes" to the query "Do
you want open the subdcuments before continuing with this command?" it
occassional gives us an error that a subdocument is missing and indicates
that all subsequent subdocument in the master doc are likewise missing, it
also sometimes gives an error that a "Word failed reading from this file
(<filename>). Please restore the network connection or replace the floppy
disk and retry" . . . the file named is neither on the network nor on
floppy disk. Could it be that the 1.47 gig "document" is too big for MS
Word to handle. Any body have any advise ???? When the problems occured I
sent an error report to Microsoft but we know that usually goes into a black
hole or at least I'll never receive a response. I 've downloaded all the
patches and I'm at a loss.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

There's no way a 400-page document contains more than 32Mb of text. The
problem is almost certainly the Master Document "feature." Graphics will
really bloat Word files but they don't count toward the 32Mb limit.
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.