Hi Sharon,
Sharon said:
For Word 2000 the max file size is 32 megbytes.
That limit is without counting pictures. And 32 MBytes of text is a whole
lot...
Has anyone ever had a document that large?
Has anyone had a 400 page Word document?
I work on documents that size quite often, though 400 pages are only about
6 MBytes in most cases.
Did you have any problems?
No problems at all. Though you have to avoid a few things (such as large
tables that span lots of pages).
I would avoid the "Master Document" feature, because it's not really
necessary, and has some bugs and gotchas if you don't follow a few rules.
These rules (for example not using too many child documents and section
breaks, or basing all child documents on the same template) restrict the
usefulness of the feature even more.
It is sensible to keep lots of backup copies. I create a new folder for
every day I work on a large doc, and save about every half hour under a new
filename. Every week or so, everything is backed up on a CD.
This isn't so much an insurance against Word bugs, but against pilot
errors. Sometimes you make a "Find/Replace" or a formatting change or run a
macro, and only notice much later that you accidentally changed or deleted
something -- especially in a large document.
And for a large document, it really pays off to put some work into
preparing a suitable template with suitable styles, and then stick to them.
Manual formatting should be a no-no -- again, not because Word would have
problems with it, but rather because it will create more work for you
further down the road, when you try to change the layout.
Regards,
Klaus
