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> Could anyone give me an idea of the file size that Word can
> accommodate? At how many pages or megs does it die?
The stated maximum is 32Mb, excluding embedded graphics. Think in terms of
5-10kb/page as a rough rule of thumb.
The practical maximum rather depends on the nature of the document, which
version of Word and Windows you have, and a few other factors.
If you have a well-specified machine (at least 512Mb RAM), and have created
and religiously used a template with a good set of styles, and have avoided
using Fast Saves, saving to diskette, Master documents or any other such
monstrosities, and are running on Windows 2K or XP, and are using Word 2K or
XP, and you have avoided using too many section breaks and embedded OLE
objects (including equations), and regularly clean your machine of leftover
temporary files following any crashes, then there is no reason why you can't
get a document in a single file up to 2-3000 pages. I think my record is
3600 pages in a single file. It might be a bit unwieldy at that size, so for
editing purposes I would break it down into smaller chunks (500 pages or
less) and only assemble the full document as the final process.
The best manual for Word for dealing with long documents is the Framemaker
reference manual. If you don't do anything in Word that doesn't have a
fairly direct equivalent in Frame then you are pretty safe. Just avoid all
the "ease of use" features that Microsoft keeps putting in to make it easier
to type a two-page letter.
Regards
Jonathan West
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