DocX too large to open

[JaneR]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) I have been working on a doc transferring photos, via the desktop, into the text. It was taking an awfully long time to save and now I can't open it all as it says it is too large. I realise now that the photos have gone over full size and the whole doc is 534 mb. Can anyone help please.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Jane:

The document is NOT "over-size". That's an out-dated error message that
should never have appeared. The actual limit is just over 2 gigabytes,
because that's the limit for a 32-bit file system.

OS 10.6 is 64 bits, so will actually allow you to go far higher than that
(bigger than the entire hard disk...) but as you have discovered, the
document becomes impossibly slow to save.

In your case, the issue is that "something" in the document has corrupted
(which is not uncommon in a document that contains lots of pictures: it's a
bug).

However, since you are in .DOCX, you can get your pictures back. Here's
how:

1) Make a copy of the document file.

2) Change the extension from .docx to .sip

3) Right-click and open with BOM Archive

4) You will see a little website appear.

In the folder named "Word" is another folder named "Media".

There are your photos: copy them out to a disk folder and re-label them

Cheers

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) I have been working on
a doc transferring photos, via the desktop, into the text. It was taking an
awfully long time to save and now I can't open it all as it says it is too
large. I realise now that the photos have gone over full size and the whole
doc is 534 mb. Can anyone help please.

--

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]

 

[JaneR]

Thank you so much for replying. I have tried to do as you suggested. I needed to make an archive of the document to get at the BOM Archive prompt. It then had extensionsip.zip. I tried to right click this and active BOMArchive only to get a message saying
"Unable to unarchive ........sip.zip into "desktop". (Error 1-Operation not permitted.)
AM I doing something wrong here - do hope you can help further

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Jane;

I'm afraid you were misled by a single - but critical - typo in John's
instructions John doesn't make many mistakes, but when he does...

Step 2 should read: Change the extension from .docx to .zip, not .sip

See if that works better.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[John McGhie]

{Blush} Bob is exactly correct. The mistake was mine: I should have typed
..zip.

My typing is not what it should be ...

I am very sorry...

Hi Jane;

I'm afraid you were misled by a single - but critical - typo in John's
instructions John doesn't make many mistakes, but when he does...

Step 2 should read: Change the extension from .docx to .zip, not .sip

See if that works better.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

--

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]

 

[JaneR]

Hi Bob and John

Thanks again - I am one step nearer to getting the document to open.

I have followed the steps as described and actually "cut" the photos out of the "Media" and put them in a folder on the desktop.

Now I want to open the original document in Word (with out photos obviously) so I can start again to insert very small photos.

Thanks
JaneR

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Jane:

Hmmm... That gets harder

You don't have access to a PC do you? This is easy on a PC. Having removed
the media files (NOT the folder... Just the files inside it) you can then
simply close the .zip file and change the extension back to .docx.

Word will open it straight up (without its pictures...)

On a Mac, once you have opened the .zip file you cannot re-assemble it as a
..docx without using the command line. If you do, the Finder has written
that silly hidden file in there and Word can't read the file after that.

The closest you could come is to open the original file in Mac Word, but
instead of choosing "Word document" set "enable" to "Recover text from any
file".

You will get back the unformatted text.

Hope this helps

Hi Bob and John

Thanks again - I am one step nearer to getting the document to open.

I have followed the steps as described and actually "cut" the photos out of
the "Media" and put them in a folder on the desktop.

Now I want to open the original document in Word (with out photos obviously)
so I can start again to insert very small photos.

Thanks
JaneR

--

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]

 

[JaneR]

SUCCESS! Thank you so much for that info - I managed to retrieve the doc via a PC as you suggested. Can't tell you how grateful I am
Thanks very much indeed
Jane R