how to handle large document organization

[Chip Orange]

We're converting from wp to Word 2002.

We decided, because of what we read, not to make use of Word's master
document feature, but to create one large 800 page document using sections
and outline view.

Our users have complained that this can be very slow at times, in
particular, using the undo feature can take 1 minute to undo a simple change
(and so can the automatic backup feature).

Given that master document shouldn't be used; how should we organize a large
document which must have a table of contents and an index, and which is
frequently updated and viewed? We do not necessarily need the ability to
update multiple portions concurrently.

thanks for suggestions.

Chip

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Learn about styles first. Then apply Word's built-in heading styles to your
headings (change the formatting of the styles to suit your use). This will
allow you to easily generate a Table of Contents with hyperlinks and let you
use the Document Map feature.

The best way to improve the speed of handling is to add RAM to your
computers.

Make sure that the Fast Saves option is turned OFF. This will wreck your
document.

What follows is general advice on moving to Word from WP:

Word and Word Perfect work very differently from one another. Each program's
methods have strengths and weaknesses; but, if you try to use one of these
programs as if it were the other, it is like pushing on a string! You can
easily make a lot of extra work for yourself. If you are unwilling to take
the time to learn to use Word's methods, you should stick to using Word Pad.
You'll have a lot less grief, although you'll miss out on a lot of raw
power.

See <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WordVsWordPerfect.htm>
<URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/TipsAndGotchas.htm>
<URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/RevealCodes.htm>
<URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WordPerfectConverters.htm>
<URL:
http://businesssoft.about.com/compute/businesssoft/library/blconvert.htm>
for information on Word for Word Perfect users.

For more:
<URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart2.htm>
<URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart1.htm>
<URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Numbering/WordsNumberingExplained.htm>
<URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/WhatTemplatesStore.htm>

In Word 2000 (or later) You can get the function keys to display in a
special toolbar at the bottom of the screen if you want (something like
pressing F3 twice in WP). The following macro will do this.
Sub ShowMeFunctionKeys()
Commandbars("Function Key Display").Visible = True
End Sub

Learn about Styles - really learn! I resisted for years and now regret every
day of those years because although that string was still very hard to push,
it kept getting longer and longer, and had some very important projects tied
to it!

In Word Perfect macros are often used to reproduce text. In Word you want to
use templates, AutoText and AutoCorrect for this. You can use FILLIN and ASK
fields or UserForms to query the user. For some form documents, Word's
"online forms" work very well. For more about online forms, follow the links
at <URL: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/FillinTheBlanks.htm>
especially Dian Chapman's series of articles.

I would not recommend using converted documents long-term. They will be
filled with formatting anomolies that will get you at the worst time. This
is especially true of any documents containing automatic numbering or
bullets. Try recreating form documents in Word using the following process:

In Word Perfect (if you still have it, in Word if not) save your files as
text files.

Use your converted files as references to show you how you want your
formatting to look.

Create a new document in Word and insert the text from the text file. Save
this new document as a Word template. Format it the way you want using
styles, not direct formatting. Save it again.

To use a template within Word, use File => New and pick your template. This
will create a new document for you.

--

Charles Kenyon

See the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

We decided, because of what we read, not to make use of Word's master
document feature, but to create one large 800 page document using sections
and outline view.

Our users have complained that this can be very slow at times, in
particular, using the undo feature can take 1 minute to undo a simple change
(and so can the automatic backup feature).

This sounds like subpar Word performance, even with an 800-page document.
That is, Word is *not* inherently slow with such long documents. How fast
are the computers you are running this on, how much memory do they have,
etc. Have you done maintenance on your computer lately?

Or slowness is sometimes a sign of a corrupt doc. Here's info on that:
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm

Normal View is much faster than Page Layout for long documents.

Also note that is *not* automatic backup--it is AutoRecover and works only
if Word crashes, and sometimes can attempt to recover a doc that is *older*
than your last save. See here for more info:
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/AutomaticSave.htm

If you want to break the document up, you could investigate the IncludeText
field for when you need to pull it all together.

DM

 

[Chip Orange]

Thanks Charles for the response.

We've already taken all your advice, and I've read many, if not most, of
those articles.

I probably didn't make my problem clear enough; it's not how to convert from
WP to Word (yes, we've become very proficient with styles and use them
constantly), but, it's how to replace the WP master document feature.

The need here, since Words master document feature is problematic, for
suggestions to help me improve the speed in dealing with very large
documents. Alternatively, someone might suggest to me that use of the
includetext field is the way to go. But for now, unless we break the
document down into parts without use of the master document feature, things
can get very slow at times, and as I understood your suggestions, none of
them pertained directly to the speed of Words operations.

What we have is a document, created from scratch, defined in many sections
with liberal use of the heading style to make TOC and document map easy.
The text of the document is being pasted in, bit by bit, from WP copy/paste
operations, as unformatted text.

As our Word document grows in size, it grows ever slower to operate on it.

We have 1.8 ghz pcs with 512mb of RAM, and the only obvious slow item is
that our automatic backup files are set to go to a network server directory
(for reasons of recovery by network administrators). There is some
disagreement amongst the ITS folks here as to whether this is a good idea or
not.

Obviously the temporary files directory is left pointing to the local hard
drive.

The document being worked on is stored on a network drive.

Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

Chip

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Hi,

It sounds as if network speed may be your bottleneck. More RAM might still
help. Try maxing out one machine and benchmarking it against another doing
the same things. Scrolling through a large document in RAM is a very
different experience from doing the same using Windows disk paging.

If you have Norton AV software, disable the "Office Plug-In" as it can slow
document opening and processing.

In a document that size, if you can format it only using styles, that should
speed things up and will make editing much faster. Don't use empty
paragraphs for spacing. Each paragraph mark in a document with direct
formatting can contain over 50 formatting codes. I believe these are reduced
to one or two by style formatting.

As Dayo said, processing in normal view (with autopagination turned off)
makes Word much more responsive. Specify use of a draft font in normal view.

I mentioned the Fast Saves option. This _must_ be turned off. They are not
fast, they are disaster-prone. This is a hold-over from the days of very
slow disk drives and slow processors.

If you are working on the document on a network drive, the temporary files
are _not_ being saved locally. Word saves its main temporary document files
in the folder with the document. The automatic backup files (as well as the
autorecover files) will be saved to your network drive. If this folder is
restricted, that could be slowing Word down. (This last statement is
speculation, not knowledge.)

--

Charles Kenyon

See the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

Thanks Charles for the response.

We've already taken all your advice, and I've read many, if not most, of
those articles.

I probably didn't make my problem clear enough; it's not how to convert from
WP to Word (yes, we've become very proficient with styles and use them
constantly), but, it's how to replace the WP master document feature.

The need here, since Words master document feature is problematic, for
suggestions to help me improve the speed in dealing with very large
documents. Alternatively, someone might suggest to me that use of the
includetext field is the way to go. But for now, unless we break the
document down into parts without use of the master document feature, things
can get very slow at times, and as I understood your suggestions, none of
them pertained directly to the speed of Words operations.

What we have is a document, created from scratch, defined in many sections
with liberal use of the heading style to make TOC and document map easy.
The text of the document is being pasted in, bit by bit, from WP copy/paste
operations, as unformatted text.

As our Word document grows in size, it grows ever slower to operate on it.

We have 1.8 ghz pcs with 512mb of RAM, and the only obvious slow item is
that our automatic backup files are set to go to a network server directory
(for reasons of recovery by network administrators). There is some
disagreement amongst the ITS folks here as to whether this is a good idea or
not.

Obviously the temporary files directory is left pointing to the local hard
drive.

The document being worked on is stored on a network drive.

Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

Chip

Learn about styles first. Then apply Word's built-in heading styles to your
headings (change the formatting of the styles to suit your use). This will
allow you to easily generate a Table of Contents with hyperlinks and let you
use the Document Map feature.

The best way to improve the speed of handling is to add RAM to your
computers.

Make sure that the Fast Saves option is turned OFF. This will wreck your
document.

What follows is general advice on moving to Word from WP:

Word and Word Perfect work very differently from one another. Each program's
methods have strengths and weaknesses; but, if you try to use one of these
programs as if it were the other, it is like pushing on a string! You can
easily make a lot of extra work for yourself. If you are unwilling to take
the time to learn to use Word's methods, you should stick to using Word Pad.
You'll have a lot less grief, although you'll miss out on a lot of raw
power.

See <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WordVsWordPerfect.htm>
<URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/TipsAndGotchas.htm>
<URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/RevealCodes.htm>
<URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WordPerfectConverters.htm>
<URL:
http://businesssoft.about.com/compute/businesssoft/library/blconvert.htm>
for information on Word for Word Perfect users.

For more:
<URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart2.htm>
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart1.htm>
<URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Numbering/WordsNumberingExplained.htm>
<URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/WhatTemplatesStore.htm>

In Word 2000 (or later) You can get the function keys to display in a
special toolbar at the bottom of the screen if you want (something like
pressing F3 twice in WP). The following macro will do this.
Sub ShowMeFunctionKeys()
Commandbars("Function Key Display").Visible = True
End Sub

Learn about Styles - really learn! I resisted for years and now regret every
day of those years because although that string was still very hard to push,
it kept getting longer and longer, and had some very important projects tied
to it!

In Word Perfect macros are often used to reproduce text. In Word you

want

 

[Chip Orange]

thanks again for your response.

We don't have Norton AV software (we have Mcafee on the clients) and also,
Mcafee real-time AV scanning on the Novell Netware server.

I'll ask about the pc in question, but I don't think we have anything with
less than 512mb of ram.


I don't guess there's anything we can do to get Word to put its temp files
on C: even when working with a networked document?

Chip

Hi,

It sounds as if network speed may be your bottleneck. More RAM might still
help. Try maxing out one machine and benchmarking it against another doing
the same things. Scrolling through a large document in RAM is a very
different experience from doing the same using Windows disk paging.

If you have Norton AV software, disable the "Office Plug-In" as it can slow
document opening and processing.

In a document that size, if you can format it only using styles, that should
speed things up and will make editing much faster. Don't use empty
paragraphs for spacing. Each paragraph mark in a document with direct
formatting can contain over 50 formatting codes. I believe these are reduced
to one or two by style formatting.

As Dayo said, processing in normal view (with autopagination turned off)
makes Word much more responsive. Specify use of a draft font in normal view.

I mentioned the Fast Saves option. This _must_ be turned off. They are not
fast, they are disaster-prone. This is a hold-over from the days of very
slow disk drives and slow processors.

If you are working on the document on a network drive, the temporary files
are _not_ being saved locally. Word saves its main temporary document files
in the folder with the document. The automatic backup files (as well as the
autorecover files) will be saved to your network drive. If this folder is
restricted, that could be slowing Word down. (This last statement is
speculation, not knowledge.)

--

Charles Kenyon

See the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

message news:[email protected]...

Thanks Charles for the response.

We've already taken all your advice, and I've read many, if not most, of
those articles.

I probably didn't make my problem clear enough; it's not how to convert from
WP to Word (yes, we've become very proficient with styles and use them
constantly), but, it's how to replace the WP master document feature.

The need here, since Words master document feature is problematic, for
suggestions to help me improve the speed in dealing with very large
documents. Alternatively, someone might suggest to me that use of the
includetext field is the way to go. But for now, unless we break the
document down into parts without use of the master document feature, things
can get very slow at times, and as I understood your suggestions, none of
them pertained directly to the speed of Words operations.

What we have is a document, created from scratch, defined in many sections
with liberal use of the heading style to make TOC and document map easy.
The text of the document is being pasted in, bit by bit, from WP copy/paste
operations, as unformatted text.

As our Word document grows in size, it grows ever slower to operate on it.

We have 1.8 ghz pcs with 512mb of RAM, and the only obvious slow item is
that our automatic backup files are set to go to a network server directory
(for reasons of recovery by network administrators). There is some
disagreement amongst the ITS folks here as to whether this is a good

idea

 

[Bob S]

I don't guess there's anything we can do to get Word to put its temp files
on C: even when working with a networked document?

Not directly. The temp file locations are hard-wired.

One approach is to manually copy the DOC file from the server to the
local PC and open it in Word there. Copy it back when you are done. At
th every least you should try this once to see whether it makes a
difference.

Another thing to consider is the "make local copy" option. Here are
some notes about that possibility:

*******

Word 2002 has an option called "Make local copy of files stored on
network or removable drives". The option is located in Tools | Options
| Save, and is off by default. (You can also tamper with the registry
to override this setting, see the article.) The explanation of what
the option does is found in article 277010 and is rather complex. Here
is how I understand it.

First, this started as an attempt to eliminate the problems with using
files on floppy disks. (It seems appropriate that Microsoft should
finally have a shot at fixing this problem now that floppy disks are
in the twilight of their career.) When you use Word 2002 to open a
file on a removable medium of 3MB or smaller total drive size (i.e. a
floppy disk), Word first makes a copy of the file in the TEMP folder,
then opens the copy. All of Word's temporary files are thus on the
hard drive, so Word does not run out of space. Whenever you push Save,
Word updates both the temporary file and the original on the floppy.
When you close the file, Word deletes the temporary copy file. All of
this is built-in and not optional.

What setting the option does is to enable all of this mechanism if the
file is on a network or removable drive that is larger than 3MB.
(Actually, the article disagrees with itself on whether the copy is
actually made for large drives. Testing is needed.)

However, Microsoft has also grafted on another piece of function,
which is controlled by this same option. It seems that in prior
versions of Word, if your computer went into Suspend mode to reduce
power, all file locks on the files that you were working on were
dropped. The consequence was that if the file was on a shared network
drive and someone else tried to open it, they would succeed. They
could make changes to the file and save them. Then when your computer
woke up again, you could save changes that you had made to the file,
overwriting the changes the other user had made.

Apparently if you set this new option, Word does not drop the file
locks if your computer goes into Suspend mode, avoiding the
possibility of lost edits by another user. The cost is that since the
locks are held by your suspended computer, the setting prevents any
edits by another user until you and your computer wake up.

The article also claims that if the option is turned on, the usual
"owner file" is not created by Word when a file is opened.

*****

By the way, you said that the document is 800 pages, but I didn't
notice where you said how big it is in MB. I have a simple (no
pictures, etc) 500 page document that takes about 5MB and is quite
quick to deal with.

Bob S

 

[adriant]

I was reading this thread to get some help on the 'make local copy of
files stored on network.....' setting for my Word 2002.
Earlier today I noticed this box and, thinking it would be a good idea,
checked the box.
Loading my current manual from the network, I worked away all morning,
saving frequently as is my wont, and half an hour ago, needing a break
decided to close the document.
I was dismayed to find that the original file on the netword had not
been updated at all and the only other files I could find, in the
regular Temp files location, were only that; a bunch of temp files.
Opening all these in turn eventually I found the most recent one.
Phew!
But what went wrong, why did Word not update that original network
version?

As for large files, I avoid working on Word docs over 3mb, say 200
pages inc. illustrations.. It all gets slow and flakey beyond that,
although I admit my PC is not of the latest specs. Good luck with the
WP conversion but that seems like a job for a specialist!