A
AKMAXFELIX
Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel The accept and reject changes feature is painfully slow. This is a new problem since installing 2008. Any suggestions?
J
John McGhie
My suggestion is that that particular document has become too complex: it is
teetering on the edge of failing completely, meaning you will lose the whole
document.
If I were you, I would resolve all the changes now, before it fails.
You can do that by making TWO copies of the document.
In the first, REJECT all the changes so you get back to the original.
In the second, ACCEPT all the changes so you get a "new document without any
change marking".
Then use the Compare document feature to compare the two. That will re-mark
only the changes that are differences between the oldest version and the
newest version.
Doing so will clean out the rats nest of code in there that is causing the
slow-down.
If you do this soon enough, you should save it before it fails completely.
In future, I strongly recommend resolving the first round of changes before
adding the next round. I also recommend resolving ALL changes at the end of
each version.
If you simply leave Track Changes turned on and edit a document frequently,
the internal complexity within rises geometrically as you stack changes upon
changes within changes, until eventually the code gets too complex for Word
to handle. At that stage, it gives up and crashes, and from that time on,
you've lost the document and it can leave the document in a state where
there is no way to recover the content.
Hope this helps
--
The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!
John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
teetering on the edge of failing completely, meaning you will lose the whole
document.
If I were you, I would resolve all the changes now, before it fails.
You can do that by making TWO copies of the document.
In the first, REJECT all the changes so you get back to the original.
In the second, ACCEPT all the changes so you get a "new document without any
change marking".
Then use the Compare document feature to compare the two. That will re-mark
only the changes that are differences between the oldest version and the
newest version.
Doing so will clean out the rats nest of code in there that is causing the
slow-down.
If you do this soon enough, you should save it before it fails completely.
In future, I strongly recommend resolving the first round of changes before
adding the next round. I also recommend resolving ALL changes at the end of
each version.
If you simply leave Track Changes turned on and edit a document frequently,
the internal complexity within rises geometrically as you stack changes upon
changes within changes, until eventually the code gets too complex for Word
to handle. At that stage, it gives up and crashes, and from that time on,
you've lost the document and it can leave the document in a state where
there is no way to recover the content.
Hope this helps
--
The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!
John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
A
AKMAXFELIX
Thanks for your suggestion, John. I can see how that could happen. It was probably the cause of many problems I had last year with some very complex documents that were constantly tracking changes and "checking spelling as you go". By the time I figured out what to do, it was too late and documents hopelessly corrupt. Meanwhile, what should I do? My work centers on highly complicated documents with multiple authors and commentators. They require many embedded figures and images. Hopefully, you can guide me.
J
John McGhie
Yeah:
Those are just normal documents in the workplace: I live with them all day
too
As a rule of thumb: "Resolve your changes, don't die wondering."
Let's say I originated the document. I turn tracked changes OFF while I am
working, because I don't need to see my own changes.
Then I put the thing out for review. I may turn track changes on at that
point.
When I get the reviewed version back, I will go through and resolve the
changes at that point. I will then save the document with NO changes marked
in it before I put any further changes in.
You must get back to a clean version between each round: it's "changes on
top of changes" that does the damage.
Normally, I DON'T turn Track Changes on. I don't need to see
character-for-character what my reviewers have done (most of them are
incompetent with Word and they'll stuff up the formatting anyway). So I
send the document out with Track Changes turned off.
When I get the comments back, it's formatting salad anyway because they have
no clue. So I save their version into Plain Text to get rid of their
formatting "improvements" then use Compare Documents to compare just the
text with my version.
Using Copmpare Documents, Word itself marks the changes, cleanly and neatly
and without stuffing up the formatting.
Then I come through and resolve (accept/reject) all the changes back to a
clean version before starting the next round of updates and reviews.
The Track Changes mechanism is damn flaky. They have been saying for YEARS
that "it will be fixed real soon now". And each version it's a little
better, but it's still not very reliable. At least it is now accurate:
there used to be a whole raft of situations under which it would not see or
would not mark the changes. These days, there's only a few of those and
they are fairly rare edge cases.
So at leats these days you can see if any character in the document has
changed. Even if the formatting and internal structure is pretty broken
afterwards
Some rules of thumb:
1) Don't send a document for review that already contains changes: always
send it out clean.
2) NEVER, EVER hide changes. Either turn Track Changes ON, or turn it OFF.
Never hide the changes in the document, otherwise you will forget to turn
track changes off and the document will continue to collect each edit as a
change until it fails.
3) Try not to use Tracked Changes. Always prefer Compare Documents. Can
you simply live with Comments instead? Or pencil and paper? Track Changes
is like cosmetic surgery: it's very handy but it's still surgery and there
is always the risk of patient death
Hope this helps
--
The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!
John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
Those are just normal documents in the workplace: I live with them all day
too
As a rule of thumb: "Resolve your changes, don't die wondering."
Let's say I originated the document. I turn tracked changes OFF while I am
working, because I don't need to see my own changes.
Then I put the thing out for review. I may turn track changes on at that
point.
When I get the reviewed version back, I will go through and resolve the
changes at that point. I will then save the document with NO changes marked
in it before I put any further changes in.
You must get back to a clean version between each round: it's "changes on
top of changes" that does the damage.
Normally, I DON'T turn Track Changes on. I don't need to see
character-for-character what my reviewers have done (most of them are
incompetent with Word and they'll stuff up the formatting anyway). So I
send the document out with Track Changes turned off.
When I get the comments back, it's formatting salad anyway because they have
no clue. So I save their version into Plain Text to get rid of their
formatting "improvements" then use Compare Documents to compare just the
text with my version.
Using Copmpare Documents, Word itself marks the changes, cleanly and neatly
and without stuffing up the formatting.
Then I come through and resolve (accept/reject) all the changes back to a
clean version before starting the next round of updates and reviews.
The Track Changes mechanism is damn flaky. They have been saying for YEARS
that "it will be fixed real soon now". And each version it's a little
better, but it's still not very reliable. At least it is now accurate:
there used to be a whole raft of situations under which it would not see or
would not mark the changes. These days, there's only a few of those and
they are fairly rare edge cases.
So at leats these days you can see if any character in the document has
changed. Even if the formatting and internal structure is pretty broken
afterwards
Some rules of thumb:
1) Don't send a document for review that already contains changes: always
send it out clean.
2) NEVER, EVER hide changes. Either turn Track Changes ON, or turn it OFF.
Never hide the changes in the document, otherwise you will forget to turn
track changes off and the document will continue to collect each edit as a
change until it fails.
3) Try not to use Tracked Changes. Always prefer Compare Documents. Can
you simply live with Comments instead? Or pencil and paper? Track Changes
is like cosmetic surgery: it's very handy but it's still surgery and there
is always the risk of patient death
Hope this helps
--
The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!
John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]