OS 9.1
325mb ram
2mb HD
Powerbook G3 Wallstreet
Word 2001
Hi John,
Thanks for the reply and information.
Here are some things relevant to the post.
The size situation described in my first post seemed to change overnight in
that I have back my main document in the manageable 875kb size ‹ perhaps
that was the result of shutting down, closing word windows, I don¹t know,
but since then I¹ve been able to work and back up as before. A second
similar document on HD is approximately the same size. And the back up on
the floppy is also the same.
2) If you SAVE to a floppy, Word always has two copies at the save
destination.
I¹ve never ŒSAVE(D) AS¹ an open word document to a backup disk, be it zip or
floppy.
Do you, in your ³2) If you SAVE to a floppy... ², mean that with the word
document open ‹ and already having been ³Saved As² and given a name ‹ you
are talking about doing a backup to a floppy by going to ³Save As² again
(Save alone would not open a window), choosing and opening the floppy disk
icon, clicking ŒSave¹, being told there is already..., and saying OK? Is
that the process you refer to that puts the entire HD document on the floppy
for the time it takes to write, thus jeapordizing the main document? Or
does the way I describe drag and drop take the entire HD document across?
I don¹t think it could, because over the years I have done thousands of such
drag and drop with, say, a 1MB file over onto a 1.4MB floppy, without my
file being rejected due to lack of space.
(This paragraph may be redundant. I wrote it before I wrote the above)
I will leave word (the document remaining open) to the finder (desktop)
where the hard disk file of the document is in a folder. Next to that open
folder I have the open floppy disk folder containing the same document. I
drag the file from the HD window and drop it into the floppy/zip window.
The warning tells me there is an old file, do I want to replace, I say yes.
The file¹s icon (the one in the floppy) momentarily disappears, then
reappears and I consider the backup done. Yes, as in your ³3)².
I don¹t know MOVE . I gather it¹s different from drag and drop.
As to my zip drive and zip disks, I have long had an intermittent problem
with the disk icon appearing on the desktop. I¹ve usually gotten it to
work again, and it will for many weeks. I¹ve never had a problem with the
Zip media. With the drive, I¹ve gone through the whole thing with
extensions and with the Iomega Guest Driver. It¹s just that this time, the
whole thing hasn¹t yet repaired itself. As I say, I¹m working with someone
on an apple discussion group. But what do you think, John? does it sound
like the the drive (the module, the mechanism, itself) is shot?
I both save and back up frequently, religiously, because it¹s creative
writing and if lost my muse gets angry with me, the computer, and Microsoft
2
I¹ve never had a problem with Fasst Save or Always Make Backup Copy. I have
been doing Always Make Backup Copy just lately, as I made sure the floppy
modules were working OK. I happen to have two modules, one on each side,
enabling me to make my two backup copies at almost the same time. Slow
going though.
The doubling of file size I originally brought still baffles me, althought I
think the answer is somewhere there in your recent post.
Last. You say ³turn off fast saves and work on my HD². I see what you say
about Microsoft, but as I said, I save very frequently, sometimes once a
minute and fast save is fast. I¹ve never had nothing checked in
preferences, save, save options. Is this what you mean by ³work on your
hard disk²? I¹ll try it. I want to ask...how will my work be saved (not
backed up). Is the computer constantly rewriting the document as I write
or make changes?
As for Microsoft...those waskaly waskals. All it would take would take
would be to announce a simple ³Erratta²along with a warning.
Help has a lot of good information, but 50% of the time it just doesn¹t
happen to know the answer to what I¹m asking. But that¹s true for must help
guides.
Thanks again, Rafael
Hi Rafael:
Yes, I understand that you are using floppies because of hardware failure
that you are getting fixed. Just to clarify what I said:
1) Microsoft is desperately trying to avoid admitting to the world (and
particularly to the lawyers amongst us...) that Fast Saves corrupts
documents. So they keep writing the Help from the original design
specification of how it was "supposed" to work.
The truth is: "If you allow fast saves to occur, you WILL corrupt
documents." When a Fast Save corrupts a document, you get NONE of the file
back.
The sad reality is that to work, fast saves requires the hardware to work
"perfectly". As you have discovered, removable media devices simply don't
work perfectly "all of the time".
The Help on fast saves is misleading. It always has been misleading. It
describes what happens when everything works perfectly. It does not
describe what happens in reality, which is that floppy drives produce errors
(every storage device does, it's just that floppies can't automatically
correct their errors like hard disks and memory can ...)
2) If you SAVE to a floppy, Word always has two copies at the save
destination.
A) If you have Fast Saves on, the file is twice the size
B) If you have fast saves OFF, there are two copies on the disk during the
save process: the new one being written, and the old one which is not
deleted until the save succeeds. So you need twice the file size available
in disk space.
C) If you have Always make backup on, there are two copies on the disk: the
original, and the backup. During the save there are three: the new one
being written, the old one about to be renamed as the backup, and the
previous backup waiting to be deleted. You need three times the file size
available on disk.
3) If you COPY to the floppy using the Finder, you only need space on the
disk sufficient for one copy of the file. If the file already exists on the
disk, you do not need any extra space because the file will be overwritten
during the copy.
When you COPY to another disk, the original remains on your hard disk. If
you MOVE, the file is first written to the floppy, then deleted from the
hard. Don't MOVE files to floppies.
So: Turn fast saves off and work on your hard disk. Copy to the floppy for
backup at the end of each working session.
If you have OSX you can use .Zip or Stuffit to compress the files to take up
less disk space. A Word document will compress to as little as half its
size, depending on what's in it.
Hope this helps
³You've left Fast Saves turned on. Turn it off... ³
Hi John,
I turned off Fast Save
In Help I found this:
³If you select the Always create backup copy check box on the Save tab in
the Preferences dialog box (Edit menu), Word clears the Allow fast saves
check box, because backup copies can be created only with full saves.³
(I have had ¹Always create backup copy¹ check box on as a safety should the
computer crash. This has saved my .... in the past. What didn¹t happen is
that ŒAllow fast saves¹ was never cleared.)
³Select the Allow fast saves check box when you are working on a very large
document.³
(that¹s also why I ³allowed fast saves², because my MS is a whole novel.)
³However, a full save requires less disk space than a fast save.
You should do a full save in the following situations:
€ When you finish working on a document and save it for the last time.³
(Does that mean going back to preferences and checking ³full save³ at the
end of a work period?)
³€ Before you begin a task that uses a lot of memory, such as searching for
text or compiling an index.³
In fast save, I often search for text and don¹t have a problem.
As for floppies, my zip drive is not working and with the kind of five
minute or so back ups that I need to do, the CD burner isn¹t a practical
device.
Having used the floppies for a couple of weeks, I have been making
successful transfers of the 900k document. Do you mean that when the
original document is dragged over, it stays on the disk ‹ I don¹t understand
this happening because certainly 950x2 would be 1.9MB which the floppy
wouldn¹t take ‹ that the original document does not stay securely on my HD,
but is now only on the floppy? As above, I don¹t understand this as what¹s
been happening.
The floppies seem reliable enough (I make copies on two floppies) and I
frequently make a backup to CD.
Of course I like the Zip better. I¹m working with an apple peripherals disc
group now to try to fix zip drive.
Thanks, Rafael
Look in the help under "fast saves"
And don't save from Word to a floppy. Not EVER. They're not big enough,
and they're not reliable enough...
Close the document and transfer it using Finder. If you save, you need
twice the size of the document on the floppy, because Word writes the new
version before deleting the old one. If it fails because the disk runs out
of room, chances are you will lose both versions.
Cheers
--
Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie <
[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410
