Long documetns vs master document

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jeff Malka
  • Start date Start date
J

Jeff Malka

Everything I read told me there is such risk of corruption with master
documents in Word that it is wise to not use them. Well, when dealing with
a large document - such as 300+ pages for a book - that is subdivided into
many chapters, what is the best way to manage it? Separate chapter files
would create problems with later page numbering, TOCs, etc. A single large
file has its own risks.

What is the best approach? I am using Word 97 and do not wish to update.

Thanks.
 
Jeff

A single large file is the best answer. Assuming that this is an important
document and you are running a stand alone computer, then I recommend the
following procedure.

1. Make a daily (or twice-daily) back up onto some removable media - such
as a ZIP disk or a CDR. (Note routinely verify that the backups actually
work and NEVER save directly to the removable media. Always save to the
local HDD first and then copy/burn to removable media.)

2. Save regularly. I have remapped my keys so that SAVE is assigned to
F12 and SaveAs to shift+F12. This means that at any convenient
pause/break/interruption, I only have to press F12 to save my work. You will
soon get into this habit!

3. Make sure that under Tools, Options, Save tab that you have FastSaves
deselected. In fact, in that dialog, the only check mark I ever use is Allow
Background Saves as I have never trusted any of the other settings to work
correctly and I always suspected that the AutoSave every X minutes was the
devil's work.

4. Frequently make sure that when all applications are closed your
temporary folder is empty. It is a TEMP folder and files should only ever be
in their temporarily. So after a fresh reboot of the computer, go to Windows
Explorer and navigate to the TEMP folder and empty it regularly.

5. Create one long document and do not use section breaks unless you
absolutely have to. You will probably want to change your header or footer
when you change Chapters? Look at the StyleRef field and IF fields for
changing H&Fs without the need to insert section breaks. This will keep the
document structure simple, small and reduce the risk of corruption.

6. Use Styles, Styles and more Styles. Don't be tempted to create a whole
document in Normal Style with masses of direct formatting. Avoid direct
formatting as much as possible. Following these methods will also keep the
document structure simple and reduce the possibility of corruption.

7. Finally, don't use manual page breaks. These are also the work of the
devil too. Use PageBreakBefore in the next paragraph to create a new page.
If it is going to be the beginning of a new Chapter, give the Chapter
Heading Style a PageBreakBefore attribute.

Keep asking questions in this NG for any further help you may require.

--
Terry Farrell - Word MVP




Everything I read told me there is such risk of corruption with master
documents in Word that it is wise to not use them. Well, when dealing with
a large document - such as 300+ pages for a book - that is subdivided into
many chapters, what is the best way to manage it? Separate chapter files
would create problems with later page numbering, TOCs, etc. A single large
file has its own risks.

What is the best approach? I am using Word 97 and do not wish to update.

Thanks.
 
To add to what Terry has said:

2. I find the built-in shortcut for Save (Ctrl+S) sufficiently easy that I
haven't needed to create another one (much easier for me than locating a
function key).

3. I've had good results with AutoRecover (there is no AutoSave) and I have
been grateful on many occasions for the backups created by "Always create
backup copy" (for more, see
http://home.zebra.net/~sbarnhill/SaveOptions.htm).

4. There are some things in the Temp folder that are not worth deleting
because they will be recreated every time you start Word/Windows. Since I'm
running Word 2002 (Word 10) and have never had another version on this
computer, I totally fail to understand why Word/Windows feels the necessity
to create a folder called Word8.0, but it does, and I won't waste the energy
to delete it every day. Most of the folders thus created are empty or nearly
so; the Word8.0 folder does contain a 163 KB file called MSForms.exd. On an
80 GB HD, I can live with this. <g>

5. You *will* need section breaks if you want to have a different first page
header/footer in each chapter. But if you use StyleRef, you can wait for
final editing before adding these breaks.

6. There are many features that are a lot easier if you use Word's built-in
heading styles and some that are unavailable if you don't (see
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/UseBuiltInHeadingStyles.html).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Thanks to Suzanne and Terry for their great answers, also useful to me and
others (y'all might want to boilerplate those, I'm thinking....)

One further comment, Jeff--working on the same type of project, I've created
my own template and am using styles like mad, based on things learned in
this NG and the microsoft.office.word.formatting.longdocs one, which you may
want to also check out. A current thread there on "Is using 'Styles' worth
the trouble?" may interest you.

I actually keep all my chapters in separate files for now and will join them
later, which I find works for me.

Also investigate these links on styles, headings, templates, etc:

http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/TipsOnStyles.html

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Formatting/UsingOLView.htm

http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/legal/Styles.asp and a supplemented
version of the same article, http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/index.htm

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart1.htm

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Formatting/WorkWithSections.htm

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart2.htm

http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/UseBuiltInHeadingStyles.html

All three of those host sites (http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs,
http://www.addbalance.com, http://www.shaunakelly.com) have great info on
using Word.

DM
 
Dear Terry,

Thank you very much for your detailed answer. I really appreciate it. I've
used WP5.1 (for DOS!) for decades but recently switched to Word with a copy
that came with a computer I bought years ago but never really used. So, I am
still learning Word and so far I like it. With WP 5.1 I routinely used
master documents and they were no problem, but I heard (and you seem to
confirm) that they are best avoided in Word. I will do so. What worries me
is that recently I had a 10 page Word document that I wrote and discovered
much later that many footnotes had somehow become cross linked. I have no
idea how! Involved a lot of retyping. That is why I was exploring using
multiple "chapter" documents instead of one large one so that the potential
damage would only affect so much of my work said:
2. Save regularly. I have remapped my keys so that SAVE is assigned to
F12 and SaveAs to shift+F12. This means that at any convenient
pause/break/interruption, I only have to press F12 to save my work. You will
soon get into this habit!

That I learned a long time ago :-(, but how do you remap the keys in that
manner?
3. Make sure that under Tools, Options, Save tab that you have FastSaves
deselected. In fact, in that dialog, the only check mark I ever use is Allow
Background Saves as I have never trusted any of the other settings to work
correctly and I always suspected that the AutoSave every X minutes was the
devil's work.

Aha! Maybe that is what corrupted my footnotes. Will do. Thanks.
4. Frequently make sure that when all applications are closed your
temporary folder is empty. It is a TEMP folder and files should only ever be
in their temporarily. So after a fresh reboot of the computer, go to Windows
Explorer and navigate to the TEMP folder and empty it regularly.

I'll create a batch file to do that. Is there no way to force Word to delete
its own temporary files on closing? My PC tends to stay on for weeks between
reboots.
7. Finally, don't use manual page breaks. These are also the work of the
devil too. Use PageBreakBefore in the next paragraph to create a new page.
If it is going to be the beginning of a new Chapter, give the Chapter
Heading Style a PageBreakBefore attribute.

I am confused. By manual page breaks do you mean Ctrl-Enter? What is
PageBreakBefore?
Keep asking questions in this NG for any further help you may require.
Thank you. You have been extremely helpful so far.

-
Jeff McPherson
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
 
Dear Suzanne

Thank you. What a terrific group of experts. I will check out the
referenced links.

A small clarification: is the need to empty TEMP folders because it may be a
cause of corruption or just to save disk space? I am much more concerned
about the former than the latter.
 
Thanks to Suzanne and Terry for their great answers, also useful to me and
others (y'all might want to boilerplate those, I'm thinking....)
Yes, I am extremely grateful especially as this is my first foray into this
newslist. Thank you both.
I actually keep all my chapters in separate files for now and will join them
later, which I find works for me.

My gut feeling is to do the same. Hate to put all my eggs in one basket.
When I helped my wife with her PH.D dissertation (she is not into computers
and was confused with master documents in WP) I set it up for her as
chapters which I later put together for her.
 
Jeff

The reason to keep the temp folder empty is that Word makes more use of temp
files than any other app. For instance, everytime you copy/paste, Word
creates a temp file that remains 'active' until the document (and sometimes
Word) is closed. Word also creates temp files in the active folder (the
folder where the document is opened from or saved to). If word doesn't close
correctly or your system crashes, all these temp files are abandoned on your
system. Usually they are harmless, but on other occasions they may cause
strange problems or possibly stop Word from opening at all.

Terry

Dear Suzanne

Thank you. What a terrific group of experts. I will check out the
referenced links.

A small clarification: is the need to empty TEMP folders because it may be a
cause of corruption or just to save disk space? I am much more concerned
about the former than the latter.
 
Hi Jeff,

Some people do find it more practical to work with several smaller
files, as Dayo mentions. Our firm has always done that because
chapters are created in 4 far-flung offices on strange schedules.
If the only problem you encounter from this is page nubmering, I
recently built a macro to synchronize the ending page number of
each file (plus 1) with the starting page number of the next, and
will post it here if you like. All it requires is that the files
be named so that they sort alphabetically in the order in which
they are to appear.

A manual page break is CTRL+Enter. "Page break before" is a
formatting attribute (see Format-> Paragraph-> Line & Page Breaks)
which we're recommending you add to the appropriate style(s).

There's no need to force Word to delete its temp files on exit.
When Word exits normally it does that automatically. The problem
arises if Word crashes; temp files are left there and "misinform"
Word about what it's doing. (And no, the idea of clearing leftover
temp files is not about disk space.)

Info on remapping keys:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/MacrosVBA/AssignMacroToHotkey.htm
 
Jeff

2. Right-click on any toolbar and select Customise. In the Customise
dialog, press on the Keyboard button, select the command that you want to
change (in this case, File, Save and File, SaveAs) and assign new shortcut
keys.

4. These temp files should close but some people seem to have problems
with them not clearing. Temp files will always remain is Word doesn't close
properly.

7. Yes, a manual page break is Ctrl+Enter. A PBB is a Paragraph
attribute. See Format, Paragraph, Line & Page Breaks tab. A paragraph
assigned that attribute will force a page break as soon as you start typing
it. Typically, you may create a Chapter Title Style and one of the
attributes would be to give it the PBB. One of the main problems with using
manual page breaks is that if you go to edit, it may push the contents below
the area you editing down sufficiently so that the manual page break moves
to a new page and results in more pages than you intended. If you are going
to use this frequently, there a built in PBB macro that you can also drag to
your toolbar and use (or even assign a keyboard shortcut.

The important points to remember about Word is that hidden under the skin of
standard toolbars and buttons that were chosen by the MS marketing
Department, there are hundreds more productive and useful macros and
commands waiting for the user to discover. And when you cannot find what you
need, there is always VBA to automate just about anything.

Terry

Dear Terry,

Thank you very much for your detailed answer. I really appreciate it. I've
used WP5.1 (for DOS!) for decades but recently switched to Word with a copy
that came with a computer I bought years ago but never really used. So, I am
still learning Word and so far I like it. With WP 5.1 I routinely used
master documents and they were no problem, but I heard (and you seem to
confirm) that they are best avoided in Word. I will do so. What worries me
is that recently I had a 10 page Word document that I wrote and discovered
much later that many footnotes had somehow become cross linked. I have no
idea how! Involved a lot of retyping. That is why I was exploring using
multiple "chapter" documents instead of one large one so that the potential
damage would only affect so much of my work said:
2. Save regularly. I have remapped my keys so that SAVE is assigned to
F12 and SaveAs to shift+F12. This means that at any convenient
pause/break/interruption, I only have to press F12 to save my work. You will
soon get into this habit!

That I learned a long time ago :-(, but how do you remap the keys in that
manner?
3. Make sure that under Tools, Options, Save tab that you have FastSaves
deselected. In fact, in that dialog, the only check mark I ever use is Allow
Background Saves as I have never trusted any of the other settings to work
correctly and I always suspected that the AutoSave every X minutes was the
devil's work.

Aha! Maybe that is what corrupted my footnotes. Will do. Thanks.
4. Frequently make sure that when all applications are closed your
temporary folder is empty. It is a TEMP folder and files should only ever be
in their temporarily. So after a fresh reboot of the computer, go to Windows
Explorer and navigate to the TEMP folder and empty it regularly.

I'll create a batch file to do that. Is there no way to force Word to delete
its own temporary files on closing? My PC tends to stay on for weeks between
reboots.
7. Finally, don't use manual page breaks. These are also the work of the
devil too. Use PageBreakBefore in the next paragraph to create a new page.
If it is going to be the beginning of a new Chapter, give the Chapter
Heading Style a PageBreakBefore attribute.

I am confused. By manual page breaks do you mean Ctrl-Enter? What is
PageBreakBefore?
Keep asking questions in this NG for any further help you may require.
Thank you. You have been extremely helpful so far.

-
Jeff McPherson
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
 
Mark, I would be interested in seeing your macro to synchronize page numbers
across files, just to stash away in case I need it one day. Would also not
mind seeing your proper de/capitalization macro, if you don't mind.

Thanks,
DM
 
Dayo said:
Mark, I would be interested in seeing your macro to synchronize page numbers
across files, just to stash away in case I need it one day. Would also not
mind seeing your proper de/capitalization macro, if you don't mind.

Here they are. The capping/decapping macro follows first.
Note that the code structure is pretty messy since this was
built in a big hurry and adjusted many times, also usually
in a big hurry. And there's some stuff n it (state/federal)
related to my job that I don't have time to excise just now.
Also, no time to trim the linebreaks, so I assume you know
what to do with lines that wrap here. The NotForCapping
function that follows it and is required.

The repaging macro is the last one shown below. It's brand
new (and looks it), so while I don't think it has serious bugs,
it's probably got a lot of sloppy code. One thing it *doesn't*
handle is documents whose page numbering sequence changes in
the middle.

--
Mark Tangard, Microsoft Word MVP
Please reply only to the newsgroup, not by private email.
Note well: MVPs do not work for Microsoft.
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters


Sub CapperDecapper()
If Documents.Count = 0 Then Exit Sub
Dim r As String, ra As Range, w As Range, tmp As String
ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.ShowAll = False
If Selection.End - Selection.Start = 0 Then
Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend
RepeatMe:
r = Selection.Text
Select Case r
Case "A" To "Z"
tmp = Selection.Text
Selection.Delete
Selection.InsertBefore LCase(tmp)
Case "a" To "z"
If NotForCapping() = False Then
tmp = Selection.Text
Selection.Delete
Selection.InsertBefore UCase(tmp)
End If
Case "."
Selection.Range.Text = "."
Case ","
Selection.Range.Text = ","
Case " "
Selection.Collapse wdCollapseEnd
Selection.MoveRight wdCharacter, 1, wdExtend
GoTo RepeatMe
End Select
Else
Set ra = Selection.Characters(1)
Select Case ra.Text
Case "A" To "Z"
ra.Case = wdLowerCase
Set w = Selection.Words(1)
If w.Characters.Last = " " Then w.MoveEnd
wdCharacter, -1
If UCase(w.Text) = "STATE" Or UCase(w.Text) =
"FEDERAL" Then w.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight
Case "."
ra.Text = "."
Case ","
ra.Text = ","
Case Else
ra.Case = wdUpperCase
Set w = Selection.Words(1)
If w.Characters.Last = " " Then w.MoveEnd
wdCharacter, -1
If UCase(w.Text) = "STATE" Or UCase(w.Text) =
"FEDERAL" Then w.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight
End Select
End If
Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdWord, Count:=1
CheckNext:
r = Selection.Words(1).Characters(1).Text
Select Case r
Case "a" To "z", "A" To "Z", "", Chr$(13)
Exit Sub
Case Else
Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdWord, Count:=1
GoTo CheckNext
End Select
End Sub

=============

Function NotForCapping() As Boolean
NotForCapping = False
Dim r As Range
If Selection.Characters.first = ActiveDocument.Characters.first Then Exit
Function
If Selection.Characters.first.Previous <> " " Then Exit Function
Select Case Trim(Selection.Words(1).Text)
Case "a", "an", "and", "the", "as", "at", "by", "for", "from", "in", "into",
"of", "on", "onto", "or", "out", "to", "up" ', "with", "within", "without"
Set r = Selection.Words(1)
r.Collapse wdCollapseStart
r.MoveStart wdCharacter, -3
If InStr(r.Text, ". ") <> 0 Then Exit Function
NotForCapping = True
End Select
End Function

=============

Sub RepaginateSequentialClumpOfFiles()
Dim strStartPg As String, StartPg As Long, fol As String, i As Long, d As
Document, VeryLastPg As Long, PrevVeryLastPg As Long, r As Range, PrevDocEndPg
As Long, InitialPageList As String, FileList As String
fol = Trim(InputBox("Folder name?"))
If fol = "" Then Exit Sub
AskPg:
strStartPg = InputBox("ENTER THE STARTING PAGE NUMBER:", , "1")
strStartPg = Trim(strStartPg)
If strStartPg = "" Then Exit Sub
If Not IsNumeric(strStartPg) Then
If MsgBox("Must be a *number*, Melvin.", vbOKCancel, " Uncool Page Number
Detected.") = vbCancel Then Exit Sub
GoTo AskPg
End If
StartPg = Val(strStartPg)
With Application.FileSearch
.NewSearch
.LookIn = fol
.SearchSubFolders = False
.FileName = "*.DOC"
If .Execute() > 0 Then
For i = 1 To .FoundFiles.Count
FileList = FileList & vbCr & " " & Mid$(.FoundFiles(i),
InStrRev(.FoundFiles(i), "\") + 1, 99)
Next i
Else
MsgBox "No matching files found."
Exit Sub
End If
If MsgBox("Files to be processed (" & .FoundFiles.Count & "):" & vbCr &
FileList & vbCr & vbCr & "Continue?", vbOKCancel, " Ready to Process Files") =
vbCancel Then Exit Sub
End With
With Application.FileSearch
.NewSearch
.LookIn = fol
.SearchSubFolders = False
.FileName = "*.DOC"
.Execute
For i = 1 To .FoundFiles.Count
Set d = Documents.Open(FileName:=.FoundFiles(i))
d.Activate
If i = .FoundFiles.Count Then
Set r = d.Range
r.Collapse wdCollapseEnd
PrevVeryLastPg = r.Information(wdActiveEndAdjustedPageNumber)
End If
Set r = d.Range
r.Collapse wdCollapseStart
Selection.Sections(1).Headers(1).PageNumbers.RestartNumberingAtSection =
True
If i = 1 Then
Selection.Sections(1).Headers(1).PageNumbers.StartingNumber =
StartPg
InitialPageList = Trim(Str(StartPg))
Else
Selection.Sections(1).Headers(1).PageNumbers.StartingNumber =
PrevDocEndPg + 1
InitialPageList = InitialPageList & " " & Trim(Str(PrevDocEndPg +
1))
End If
d.Repaginate
DoEvents
If i = 1 Then
PrevDocEndPg = StartPg + d.ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticPages) - 1
Else
PrevDocEndPg = PrevDocEndPg + d.ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticPages)
End If
If i = .FoundFiles.Count Then VeryLastPg = PrevDocEndPg
d.Close -1
Next i
MsgBox "Finished." & vbCr & vbCr & "New last page = " & PrevDocEndPg & vbCr
& "Was previously = " & PrevVeryLastPg & vbCr & vbCr & "Initial pages = " &
InitialPageList, , " Repagination - Summary"
End With
End Sub
 
Thanks very much for those macros! Just looking at them teaches me a lot.
No kind of expert, but I think I can handle fixing line breaks and deleting
stuff not needed in my case.

Dayo
 
You're welcome. After a while I realized that the macros I
write for myself almost always aim at relieving major tedium
(real or anticipated). I guess these are prime examples,
 
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