bfrc said:
Sometimes, when I am creating a PowerPoint presentation, the mac won't
let me save it saying there "are too many files open". I simply can't
save the changes and, in the end, loose everithing.
What is hapening and how can I avoid it in the future ?
Without knowing your situation's specifics, such as which version of
PowerPoint or operating system, it's difficult to find a specific fix.
I did take the time to do a search on Google and came up with a few
possible causes:
1. An OS limit on how many total files the system can handle has been
reached,
2. An internal MS Office application limit has been reached on how many
macros/images/movies, etc. are included within a document,
3. The MS Office limit has been reached on how many times the document
can be auto-saved,
4. Or, a network and/or folder sharing conflict has arisen.
Regarding Problem 1, I saw references in the Google search indicating
that OS 8.6 has a limit of 348 open files while OS 9.x has bumped that
up to around 8000 or so. The definition of an open file, in this case,
is any font, extension, macro, picture, application, subroutine, or
script that the computer needs to hold an address space open in memory
for. Typical fixes here would include limiting the number of active
fonts in the System Folder's Font directory and keeping the number of
open applications down to a minimum, among other things. I didn't see
any reference as to whether any version of OS X has any such open file
limits.
Problem 2, I came upon discussions in a variety of other Mac Office
forums where people had around 60 macros/images/movies implanted or
imported in an Office document, including PowerPoint. The applications
seems to choke on having that many "features" in a single file. The fix
here would seem to be to reduce the number of such instances of these
external files called within a single document.
Problem 3's references were few but to the point: turn off the auto-save
feature in the application's Preferences. It appears that some Office
applications will only auto-save up to 60 copies of a document then no
more. If auto-save is a feature that must be enabled, due to operating
policy at your location, then manually invoke the "Save As..." option
frequently, slightly changing the name of the document each time. My
reference also showed that manually saving as another variant of the
document type would allow work to be saved without major loss.
Finally, Problem 4 can be overcome by not working with the file directly
from within shared folders or across network connections. Using the
Finder or other copy utility, copy the file from the network location to
your local HD, work on it and save the changes there, then use the
Finder to put a copy back onto the network share. This step usually
fixes the majority of network related issues. This type of problem was
quite common in the early days of Macs trying to access non-Mac
networks, but in some circumstances, it can still pose a problem today.
Hope this info helps. This is by no means an exhaustive, all inclusive
list of potential problems and fixes. This is just what I came up with
after about five minutes of searching Google.
Good luck.
Steve
