Anyone know of Words/Works limits?

I have been working weeks on a big file for instructions on the guitar kits I'm building. Twice now things have been going just fine, but when I added one last photo, the program locked up and I ended up losing a lot of my work.

Does anyone know of a size limit on a word processing file? I mean, it's big, but not that big.

I've written large stuff on there before (50K words, etc) and haven't had problems... I probably wouldn't add the pictures until you're finished though... put some sort of place marker where you want it... the better program for inserting images is something like Pagemaker, or similar... it's a page layout program... not cheap, though.

Also, save, save, save. Seriously... from someone who lost a term paper many years ago, I cannot stress that enough. IF you save frequently, you will lose less than you have been. Also, have Word do its Autosave feature. I set mine for five minutes. If it crashes, then the program will start back up with the last autosaved version, unless you saved it yourself more recently (usually I hit Save every other autosave... and I have that feature set every five minutes).

There shouldn't be a limit... but also you might want to scale your photos down in file size and/or actual size before placing them in the document. I've never had it crash from those, but they do suck up space on the hard drive... so shrink 'em down.

Hope this helps!

Amanda

Word is the glitchiest program I've ever encountered, and your experience sounds painfully familiar. I don't know whether you're running into a file-size limit, or the program doesn't like that particular photo, or the moon is in Jupiter with Scorpio rising... but Word doesn't need a reason to be contrary, anyway.

It's possible that the photo is corrupt in some way, though. Maybe you could try recreating the jpg (or whatever you're using) from the original photo file and see if Word likes it any better.

Failing that, you could separate the document into two segments, rather than one big file... in case it really is a size limit issue. (Save a duplicate, then delete a different half of the material from each one.)

Sometimes it can help to resave the entire document, too -- using "Save As" and retitling it. Don't know why, but sometimes it helps.

Also... I come from the old days, when if you ran into trouble, you just rebooted the machine. Sometimes it still works!

Maybe this is a crazy suggestion... but for those who don't like dealing with Word. Don't use it. Try another office program, preferably a free one. There may even be a good free program like Pagemaker. (never had the need for that, so I wouldn't know)

Originally Posted by strange_wings

Maybe this is a crazy suggestion... but for those who don't like dealing with Word. Don't use it.

Try another office program, preferably a free one. There may even be a good free program like Pagemaker. (never had the need for that, so I wouldn't know)

Click to expand...

Oh, like Open Office? It's a free office suite... open source. and has all the bits and pieces of Office. I can't remember if there's a Pagemaker type of option in OO, but it's a decent setup. And it's free.

I have to use OO on my ancient laptop... it got a minor frying early this year and Word crashes the computer itself, upon opening... so I put OO on there... it's fine now...

Amanda

Originally Posted by strange_wings

Maybe this is a crazy suggestion... but for those who don't like dealing with Word. Don't use it.

Try another office program, preferably a free one. There may even be a good free program like Pagemaker. (never had the need for that, so I wouldn't know)

Click to expand...

I switched to Open Office about two years ago, and actually prefer it to Word. It's free, and you can save a file as a Word file, or open a Word file with it.

Yep, Open Office. Since I'm on linux, that's all I have.

Free means no worries, and no money lost, if you don't like it.

Here's a dumb question - how do you switch? I use Windows and Microsoft Office, and that's what I've learned on. I'd like to try something else, but without losing the MS office though. Can you just download it or will it interfere with the MS system?

It shouldn't. It's just like installing any other program. The only thing that causes interference between programs is if you install more than one anti virus program - and that's only interference with each other.

Originally Posted by pushylady

Here's a dumb question - how do you switch? I use Windows and Microsoft Office, and that's what I've learned on. I'd like to try something else, but without losing the MS office though. Can you just download it or will it interfere with the MS system?

Click to expand...

It won't interfere with MS Office or Works at all. It's so similar to Word that you don't need to worry about getting used to it, either. You can download it here:
Open Office

Yeah, I've saved all the time. Unfortunately, I didn't have the autosave feature turned on on Word.

I actually managed to retrieve almost the whole Word file with Works. And I've just started running into the problem today.

I like the old bumper sticker:

Jesus Saves. He Also Backs Up.