Large Document

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jerry Magelssen
  • Start date Start date
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Jerry Magelssen

I have a document that has many sections, a TOC, an index and is over 300
pages. It is one document. I have been reading some of the posts and many
say that is not a good idea to have a document that long. Others say don't
use the "binder" and others say to divide the document up. If the document
is divided how do I keep the various chapters/sections in the proper place
and the index accurate, etc. I do not number the document pages
consecutively, they are numbered by section (1-1, 3-12, etc). What is the
best way to handle this long document. This is a family history and it will
continue to get larger.
Jerry
 
Hi Jerry

300 pages isn't a lot for a Word document. Word can handle documents up
to 32MB of text, plus graphics. Your machine will probably run out of
memory and exhibit performance problems long before you reach that
limit.

Binder was an application distributed with Office until Office 2000.
Many lament its passing. But I don't think it was associated with
particular intrinisic problems.

You may be thinking of master documents. They are rarely recommended
except for one-off jobs. See:
Why Master Documents corrupt
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WhyMasterDocsCorrupt.htm
and
How to recover a Master Document
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/RecoverMasterDocs.htm

The crucial issues with big documents include:
1. Turn Fast Saves off (at Tools > Options > Save).
2. Don't use Word's Versioning functionality.
3. Use styles as much as possible. Avoid direct formatting.
4. Avoid hard page breaks. Where appropriate, modify a style or
paragraph with Page Break Before.
5. Avoid section breaks unless you really need them to change columns or
(as I think you may be doing) to get Word to create chapter numbers.
6. Consider linking, rather than embedding, graphics. This will reduce
file size.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word
Melbourne, Australia
 
I have a document that has many sections, a TOC, an index and is
over 300 pages. It is one document. I have been reading some
of the posts and many say that is not a good idea to have a
document that long. Others say don't use the "binder" and
others say to divide the document up. If the document is
divided how do I keep the various chapters/sections in the
proper place and the index accurate, etc. I do not number the
document pages consecutively, they are numbered by section (1-1,
3-12, etc). What is the best way to handle this long document.
This is a family history and it will continue to get larger.
Jerry
Click to expand...

I waited until others had a chance to respond, but only Shauna
Kelly jumped in. Her suggestions are always knowledgeable and
useful. In addition, I would suggest the following: assuming
your objectives include making it easier to manage the different
chapters, reducing the risk of corruption, isolating parts of the
book for attention during different editing periods, and preparing
for the possibility of having others in the family work on their
sections, it seems to me that one way to go (since master
documents are unavailable as a practical matter) would be to have
each separate chapter as a separate file (with separate backups),
then join them for TOC and indexing purposes using the RD field.
Would that work?
 
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