Wierd problem with LONG Word document

[Blane]

Working on this huge paper right now (10,000+ words) and Word keeps flashing this "repaginating" message along the bottom of the screen. Every time I scroll around on the docuemtn it does it again for several seconds. Is this normal? If the doc fucks up I'll die!!!

Thanks for any advice.

[paisley]

for lack of a better suggestion I'd say chop it up into 3 or 4 smaller segments and piece it together when you're done

and always create a backup file when working on larger projects... power outages, fuses blowing, computer crashing "NOOO!!!"s are painful

[Blane]

I saved it, closed Word, then reopened it and it seems to be going better. And yeah, I've become almost obsessively paranoid about backing up (emailing the paper to myself before going to go take a piss, etc.). 1.5 years of work riding on 2 35-page documents. So friggin' stressful.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Yeah, I'd say the smaller docs to the bigger merged one is the way to go, if you're still having problems. I ended up with half a dozen big chapters in my dis that I didn't thread together until right at the end, and I figure that saved me all sorts of grief.

Never did figure out the index dealie, though, and I ended up doing the table of contents manually.

[phishtaper]

i despise Word, especially when the file comes from someone outside of north america. damned a4.

what are the documents, Blane? comps?

[phorbesie]

i often have the same problem blane...if i'm scrolling around a big document too quickly (well too quickly for word to handle) it starts acting crazy. no idea how to fix it, besides just scrolling more slowly

[timouse]

micro$oft survival tip # 42:

after repeatedly editing a big document, it will become fucked. this is a feature of ms office. copy the text and paste it in to a fresh document. this fixes 99% of the issues that word builds in to your files.

[Big Wooly Mammoth]

That's why I avoid word if I can and use wordperfect most of the time. (actually that's been crashing on me repeatedly over the last few weeks, particularly when I'm working with tables.)

[mattm]

Buy more RAM, break the document down as said above. Shut down any other programs that might be using your ram (those nice little icons on the desktop and by the clock take at least 1mb of RAM each and if you have a bunch by the clock it means you have a bunch of shit running which will for sure slow you down and eat up memory).

[PalacePrincess]

after repeatedly editing a big document, it will become fuÇked.

this is absolutely true. it's some weird MS glitch that has been around since at least windows '95

if the words "there is not enough memory to [do that]" (i'm paraphrasing) appear, you are just fucked fucked fucked. i've had this happen to me a few times, especially in documents with graphics & more than one font type.

save in pieces and save often!

[bradm]

Does turning off "Fast saves" improve the repeated-editing-causing-the-doc-to-get-messed-up problem? (With "Fast saves" turned on, Word simply tacks the set of changes you've made to the document to the end of the document when you save. As a result, your document will actually get bigger as you remove stuff from it, as it'll still have what you removed, along with the "remove this stuff" indication.)

Aloha,

Brad

[phishtaper]

well, if you guys got off your 8088's and onto P1-150's, you wouldnt have these problems.

[Blane]

yeah, it's my comps. And I think I'm seeing why it's causing a problem, I'm on revision #248 of the document (7750 mins of editing time, according to the statistics window)!

Fortunately, I think it's pretty much finished so I'll probably just convert it to PDF and leave the .doc file sit (until I have to integrate it into my dissertation, which'll fuck everything up, I bet).

Amazing that they haven't dealt with this kind of glitch after however many years.

Mattm, no chance on upgrading the computer. It's a laptop, and the 1gb of RAM i have should conceivably be more than enough, IMO.

Ah well, just so long as it doesn't crash or something.

[paisley]

copying and pasting a Word doc into something like Wordpad and saving it as text with structure can remove a TON of unnecessary underlying code (sentances don't really need to be told to be Times New Roman 8 times for 12 words)... I always do that when working with big docs... you'd want to skip over any tables or other fancy settings and just do it with pretty straightforward pages

sounds like you're beating it anyways, cheerios

[Douglas]

That's why I avoid word if I can and use wordperfect most of the time. (actually that's been crashing on me repeatedly over the last few weeks, particularly when I'm working with tables.)

Tools --> Proof reading --> off

When you're working with tables in WordPerfect, any auto-proof reading with freeze it up...no fix for it from Corel. Just turn it all off.

[phishtaper]

for sure Blane, those are some mighty valuable files. they amount to an agonizing one page per week.

i find that for heavily formatted docs, i need to clean house sometimes. save another copy to try an experiment. Edit>Select All to grab all the text then hit shift-F9. this will update all internal codes that may be gumming up the works. i do this every so often to correct various codes and references (page codes, footnotes, lists, ToC's). errors that may be there slowing things down will either be automatically corrected, or flagged for you to deal with (F9 will make visible codes disappear again). its worth a try.

good luck on the comps! im sure you'll shine. what's the subject?

[Blane]

for sure Blane, those are some mighty valuable files. they amount to an agonizing one page per week.

i find that for heavily formatted docs, i need to clean house sometimes. save another copy to try an experiment. Edit>Select All to grab all the text then hit shift-F9. this will update all internal codes that may be gumming up the works. i do this every so often to correct various codes and references (page codes, footnotes, lists, ToC's). errors that may be there slowing things down will either be automatically corrected, or flagged for you to deal with (F9 will make visible codes disappear again). its worth a try.

good luck on the comps! im sure you'll shine. what's the subject?

Wow, never even heard of that before. Definately worth trying. When you've got footnotes, TOCs, and Endnote (citation software) code all in one doc I"m sure that there's a bunch of errors. I'll give that a shot now. I can tell it's still messed up because it takes a good 15-20 seconds for the full doc to open from Word.

Just did my methods comp (doing a qualitative "bricolage", meaning a combination of case study, critical discourse analysis and participatory action research), and now moving on

to the theory paper, looking at the monitoring and evaluation of adult vocational education programs in international development. Sexy stuff.

ps. Is this Jason?

Edited February 28, 2007 by Guest

[phishtaper]

Just did my methods comp ... and now moving on to the theory paper ... Sexy stuff.

indeed!

[Alexis]

man o man i feel your pain with the big word files. i regularly write and edit 40+ page documents for work with tables, graphs, ToCs, footnotes etc and it took awhile for me to really learn Word the way it's supposed to be known. it's a great program and now that i know how to do everything properly rather than "manually" i don't tend to have these buggy issues. i didn't know the F9 trick, i'll have to try that next time.

good luck with your work Blane!

[phishtaper]

Word ... it's a great program ...

Alexis ... Do not panic. RUN, dont walk! to the nearest source of water. Flush your face thoroughly with fresh, cold water. Sit down and take several deep breaths. What you are experiencing is called “MS-itisâ€. It is an insidious form of mind manipulation that occurs when one is forced to use bad, user-unfriendly, monopolistic software.

In time, you will learn that life doesn’t have to be this way. You will gain confidence and eventually be able to stand up and say “I am an MS-holic and I Hate Wordâ€. But, baby steps and care are required at this stage. You will come to recognize that you do have major and frequent problems with MS products. Don’t sugar coat it. We are all friends here and all of us were also in a state of denial at one point. We are here to help you get through this difficult time. But ultimately, the quest is yours. You must break free of the brainwashing that Word is good.

[timouse]

Word ... it's a great program ...

Alexis ... Do not panic. RUN' date=' dont walk! to the nearest source of water. Flush your face thoroughly with fresh, cold water. Sit down and take several deep breaths. What you are experiencing is called “MS-itisâ€. It is an insidious form of mind manipulation that occurs when one is forced to use bad, user-unfriendly, monopolistic software.

In time, you will learn that life doesn’t have to be this way. You will gain confidence and eventually be able to stand up and say “I am an MS-holic and I Hate Wordâ€. But, baby steps and care are required at this stage. You will come to recognize that you do have major and frequent problems with MS products. Don’t sugar coat it. We are all friends here and all of us were also in a state of denial at one point. We are here to help you get through this difficult time. But ultimately, the quest is yours. You must break free of the brainwashing that Word is good.

[/quote']

it's a textbook case of Stockholm-Redmond Syndrome.