ever increasing MAC Word 2004 file (800Mb) from opened WIN Word do

[Leon B-C]

HI
I have struggled for a week to edit a file containing many tables generated
in Word 2007 for Windows on my MAC Word 2004. the original file continues to
increase - now about 1000 times bigger - I've tried taking out the text and
determined the size/problem appears to be in the tables.
So I've selected the tables individually, pasted into Excel and tidied the
dispaly and copied into a fresh document in Word - the problem persists.
This report is approaching deadline and i don't have the time to retypr? and
create the document from scratch. The issue is gobbling sys resources and
grinding Word, memory and processor to a snail pace
many thanks in advance

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I have struggled for a week to edit a file containing many tables generated
in Word 2007 for Windows on my MAC Word 2004. the original file continues to
increase - now about 1000 times bigger - I've tried taking out the text and
determined the size/problem appears to be in the tables.
So I've selected the tables individually, pasted into Excel and tidied the
dispaly and copied into a fresh document in Word - the problem persists.
This report is approaching deadline and i don't have the time to retypr? and
create the document from scratch. The issue is gobbling sys resources and
grinding Word, memory and processor to a snail pace
many thanks in advance

Try selecting the tables and choosing Table/Convert/Convert Table to
Text, then Table/Convert/Convert Text to Table.

 

[Leon B-C]

My apologies - I forgot to mention I had converted table to text before
copying to Excel and then back to text in Word to convert to a table again.
but thanks ...

any further ideas?

 

[Michel Bintener]

Could be old document fragments still floating around in your document. Try
the following: turn the invisible paragraph markers on (by clicking on the
inverted "P" in the standard toolbar ¶, or by hitting Cmd+8), then select
everything except for the last ¶ (inverted "P") sign at the very end of your
document. Copy this, paste it into a new document, save it and see if the
file size keeps ballooning like before.

My apologies - I forgot to mention I had converted table to text before
copying to Excel and then back to text in Word to convert to a table again.
but thanks ...

any further ideas?

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

*** Please always reply to the newsgroup. ***

 

[JE McGimpsey]

any further ideas?

I can't follow exactly, since you said you pasted into a fresh document,
but if you haven't tried a maggie yet, I'd try that: With non-printing
characters showing, copy everything up to, but not including, the last
paragraph mark to a completely new document.

To be even safer, I'd probably close Word first, trash (or rename) my
Normal template, then start Word again to make sure I got a
factory-default document to paste into.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

inverted "P" in the standard toolbar ¶

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilcrow

 

[Carl Witthoft]

I can't follow exactly, since you said you pasted into a fresh document,
but if you haven't tried a maggie yet, I'd try that: With non-printing
characters showing, copy everything up to, but not including, the last
paragraph mark to a completely new document.

To be even safer, I'd probably close Word first, trash (or rename) my
Normal template, then start Word again to make sure I got a
factory-default document to paste into.

I found a similar problem once and traced it back to a HUGE pile of
embedded fonts. The only way I fixed the document (Word2000 for
Windows in this case) was to copy and paste a page at a time, taking
care not to copy across a page boundary, and keep a sharp eye on the
size of the new document I was building.

 

[Leon B-C]

Thanks to all who posted (JE McGimpsey, Carl Witthoft & Michel Bintener)- a
combination of these strategies and info worked. I eventually tracked down
the one apparent culprit table out of about 80 tables by repeatedly halving
the document and each time halving the monster portion until I'd isolated the
final culprit (a mere 2 column 4 line table which must have had heaps of left
over code) at 20Mb - I've now retyped the offending table in a new doc and
reassembled the overall document at 600kb approx - relieved and grateful ...
and on time too!
cheers LeonB-C

 

[Clive Huggan]

Thanks to all who posted (JE McGimpsey, Carl Witthoft & Michel Bintener)- a
combination of these strategies and info worked. I eventually tracked down
the one apparent culprit table out of about 80 tables by repeatedly halving
the document and each time halving the monster portion until I'd isolated the
final culprit (a mere 2 column 4 line table which must have had heaps of left
over code) at 20Mb - I've now retyped the offending table in a new doc and
reassembled the overall document at 600kb approx - relieved and grateful ...
and on time too!
cheers LeonB-C

Thanks for the feedback, Leon!

Ain't Word wonderful? What would we be doing with our little lives were it
not for such intellectual challenges? ;-)

Clive Huggan
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