MsWord Making Really Big Files

[celr]

Word has been creating really big files recently. I created a 6 page
document recently which came to 2.6 MB on my computer; but I have
another document which is 38 pages long and it only comes to 367 Kb in
size. Both documents are saved as regular MS Word Documents, both are
in Courier and have no graphics. The formatting is a little different
in each but I don't understand the disparity in file size. I have
noticed a lot of rather huge differences between file sizes that do not
correspond to the length of the document in number of words or pages.

Any ideas?

Thanx,

Ken

 

[JosypenkoMJ]

Word saves changes, including deleted stuff, so one can backtrack with
command Z if something is accidentally deleted. The deleted stuff,
which isn't seen, will make the file grow in size. Deleted pictures
will realy make the file size grow. To rid these saved changes, open
the document and save it to another new file. The new file should be
smaller.

 

[JosypenkoMJ]

Correction - the above works, although the explaination is not
entirely correct. As far as I know, command Z can backtrack changes in
a document only for the current editing session of a document. If the
document is saved and closed, and reopened, the changes from the last
editing session can not be accessed (command Z is disabled).
However, opening a document with a text editor such as BBEdit will
allow seeing changes, although probably the only practical ones to see
are deletions of sections of text.

 

[celr]

Thanx, that's what I wanted to know!

Ken

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I think it might be corruption--you might want to try the standard fixes.
Also, make sure you DO NOT have fast saves checked in Word | Preferences,
Save.

Corruption fixes listed here.
http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/DocumentCorruption.htm
(hit reload a few times in Safari, if that doesn't work, try Explorer)

JoyspenkoMJ is right about Word saving a big Undo list, but that should
*not* produce such growth in such file size.

However, the "fast saves" option in prefs is a hangover from way back in the
day when computers were slow--that could cause file growth because it did
append all the saves to the end of the document instead of re-saving the
entire document, which is what Word does now. It also leads to corruption,
so make sure it's unchecked. (If fast saves was the cause of the growth, I
think it would make sense that JoyspenkoMJ's Save As solution works).

 

[celr]

Yes. I had "Fast Saves" checked, (I have now unchecked it.)

By using "Save As" a document file which was 2.4 MB file was reduced to
84Kb! Amazing.

Ken

 

[JosypenkoMJ]

A point about fast saves - for very huge files, eg, 20 to 40 MB, it
helps to have it on because as opposed to saving only recent document
changes, saving the whole file can be rather slow. If
autosave-the-file-every-so-often is on, it can be annoying to have to
wait, eg., a half a minute every 10 minutes, eg. to update the file.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

In my experience, it is *never* a good idea to have Fast Saves turned on.
It forces Word to add code to the file every time you save, without cleaning
anything out, and that inevitably leads to file bloat and frequently
contributes to file corruption. Turn off Fast Saves and leave it off!
Chances are that 20-40 MB file would never have grown so large if Fast Saves
had always been off.

--
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[Matt Centurión [MSFT]]

Do people experience long waits for saves when "Fast Saves" are turned off?
This was a feature long ago targeting floppy drives. It's hard to see the
wait being all that long these days unless you're dealing with slow networks
such as iDisks..

Matt Centurión
Macintosh Business Unit, Microsoft

A point about fast saves - for very huge files, eg, 20 to 40 MB, it
helps to have it on because as opposed to saving only recent document
changes, saving the whole file can be rather slow. If
autosave-the-file-every-so-often is on, it can be annoying to have to
wait, eg., a half a minute every 10 minutes, eg. to update the file.

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[Paul Berkowitz]

And in Tiger, if you set System Preferences/.Mac/iDisk/iDisk Syncing On
(preferably "Automatic"), you won't get slowdowns even then. Office will
sync quickly, without pauses, to the local copy of your iDisk; and the OS
will sync the local copy to the network copy in the background a little
later without disrupting anything. This is especially helpful when Entourage
syncs Projects every few minutes -= you won't notice it. Whereas with iDisk
Synching OFF, everything comes to a standstill for minutes (although it
didn't do too badly in Panther where this is the only method, built in).

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MVP MacOffice
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From: "Matt Centurión [MSFT]" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.word
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 18:26:42 -0700
Conversation: MsWord Making Really Big Files
Subject: Re: MsWord Making Really Big Files

Do people experience long waits for saves when "Fast Saves" are turned off?
This was a feature long ago targeting floppy drives. It's hard to see the
wait being all that long these days unless you're dealing with slow networks
such as iDisks..

Matt Centurión
Macintosh Business Unit, Microsoft

A point about fast saves - for very huge files, eg, 20 to 40 MB, it
helps to have it on because as opposed to saving only recent document
changes, saving the whole file can be rather slow. If
autosave-the-file-every-so-often is on, it can be annoying to have to
wait, eg., a half a minute every 10 minutes, eg. to update the file.

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Find out everything about Microsoft Mac Newsgroups at:
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Check out product updates and news & info at:
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[JosypenkoMJ]

It's called fast save because it's faster to save only incremental
changes to a file. Eg., on another computer, I opened a 6 MB file,
saved with fast save off (squeeezed, "bloating" removed) and :

- typed an extra character and saved it with fast save off
- typed an extra character and saved it with fast save on

File save times are :

Mode Time
________________
fast save off 3 second
fast save on .25 second

Computer = G3
OS = 9
Word = 98 (?)

It is not difficult to make a 20 MB word file. Eg., insert 20 1 MB
..jpeg pictures.{

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Yeah, I know what you are saying, but I still strongly recommend (it's one
of my strongest recommendations about Word...) that all users turn Fast
Saves OFF under all circumstances

One of my first reasons for this is that when Fast Saves is operating, Word
is unable to make a backup copy of the file. If you turn Fast Saves OFF,
Word will then be able to create a full backup each time you save. An
AutoRecover save is not the same thing: AutoRecover saves only the "changes"
to the file, not the whole file. If the original file corrupts, or if Word
does not "know" that it has crashed, or if the problem is that *I* deleted
something that I shouldn't, then AutoRecover will not protect you at all.
The backup file does: you simply open it: it's a complete document,
up-to-date to the time of the most recent save.

Fast Saves creates an incredibly complex internal structure in the file, and
within just a few saves, the complexity grows to the point where Word has
real trouble decoding all the pointers. If the slightest read/write error
occurs, the entire file fails, and at that stage, you may not get ANY of the
text back.

Fast Saves is disabled under most circumstances. Fast Saves relies on the
file being opened by the Operating System for "Append" access. Many
operating systems and file systems do not support this mode. Windows does,
in FAT, FAT 32 and NTFS. Mac OS X does, in OS X HFS+. I am not sure about
the others.

It is intentionally disabled for anything except "Local" disks. Anything on
the network, anything such as .Mac, most external drives: if the drive is
not mounted as "Local", Fast Saves is intentionally disabled by Word,
because the network transport does not support Open/Append.

If fast saves is turned on by the user, that does not automatically mean
that you will get a fast save. Word monitors the growing complexity of the
saved document, and attempts to perform a Full Save whenever it needs to to
simplify the internal structure. On a "large" and complex document I use
here for testing (500 pages, 22 TOCs, several hundred fields and
cross-references) I find that Fast Saves will fire only on every second
save. The complexity of the file is such that Word will (properly) not risk
a Fast Save more than once.

So my advice remains "Fast Saves breaks documents and removes your backup.
Don't use it. Ever!"

Your mileage may indeed vary, but the past 20 years' experience tells me
that it won't "increase"

Cheers

It's called fast save because it's faster to save only incremental
changes to a file. Eg., on another computer, I opened a 6 MB file,
saved with fast save off (squeeezed, "bloating" removed) and :

- typed an extra character and saved it with fast save off
- typed an extra character and saved it with fast save on

File save times are :

Mode Time
________________
fast save off 3 second
fast save on .25 second

Computer = G3
OS = 9
Word = 98 (?)

It is not difficult to make a 20 MB word file. Eg., insert 20 1 MB
.jpeg pictures.{

--

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