Word hates me Again

[callistra]

Does every one get the feeling they know exactly when I try to use Word? You should because this fucking useless piece of shit programme fucks me up every time I use it, and I come here to complain.

I opened up a file to do some work on it a few days ago. I was pretty happy with this, as I was steeling myself to do this work during Feb, but I thought I'd tackle it early. I accepted some changed, read some comments, nothing major, but got a bit of the way into editing.

And it's all gone.

FFS.

ETA: It's fucking locked up again! I had to kill it via task manager a minute ago, and now the fucking this is locked up! Why does it only do this on stuff I am working on? It doesn't do it when I read short stories in it!

Comments

[girliejones.livejournal.com]

how big's your file?

[callistra.livejournal.com]

52,000 words
Is ok now, I think I have it working again for now.
I rebooted, and most of the problems are gone.
:-)

[girliejones.livejournal.com]

The file's too big. I'd never have one file with that many words- can you break into chapters? Think of it as insurance.

[callistra.livejournal.com]

It's 122 pages! It should be able to handle that...
Shouldn't it??
0.0
It's got a lot of comments and changes in it though... which may make word more finicky about stuff. God it's a crappy programme sometimes.

[girliejones.livejournal.com]

When I was writing my thesis, there's no way I'd have one word doc with 122 pages - it'll corrupt, piss you off, and I wouldn't want to lose stuff and have to redo - too much hassle. Extra memory needed for changes and comments,

That's my 5 c worth anyway.

[callistra.livejournal.com]

OK. Will play with chapters.

[capnoblivious.livejournal.com]

Ja. My thesis was broken into chapters, and all of them managed to corrupt and piss me off at some point. If I'd kept it as a single document I'd have gone insane.

[kbpenguin.livejournal.com]

A lot depends on the computer, operating system, Word version. I edit books of 100K+ words all the time, with comments and changes tracked. Fwiw, I'm using an old-ish laptop with Windows XP and Office 2000.

Word can be a nasty piece of work sometimes, but it *should* be able to handle well more than 122 pages.

[fred-mouse.livejournal.com]

depends on what is in the 122 pages. I used to put together 300+ page documents in word, but I always made copious backups (seriously - on a busy day, I could end up with three or four versions, especially with some documents that were prone to corruption). Had the pages only had text, there probably wouldn't be an issue, but I'm pretty sure that track changes will cause things to crash with a much shorter document, as will equations created in some versions of equation editor.

calli - check your settings - is it doing fast-saves? This is a known cause of corruptions. Also, have any of the documents been tranferred from windows to mac or vice-versa - there are some simple things to change if so, that might help (contact me by email if it is relevant, and I will ask you some questions)

(FWIW, my father, who puts together major tech documentation for a living, swears that word can really only be trusted not to muck up a memo)

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Yay, its not just me!
It's working for the last few hours, and I'm saving every time I do something, so hopefully this will work out. I'll look at fastsave later - I may have turned that on, not realising it adds to Teh Flakey.

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

I put in another vote for Track Changes and Fast Saves chewing up memory.

[noidea72.livejournal.com]

why dont u use open source?

[callistra.livejournal.com]

I don't like it much. I keep grumbling I will have to learn one day.... but I find it easier to just use Notetab.

[leahcim.livejournal.com]

And yet you still use it! :P Surely using any other word processor would be an improvement. I think a small sacrifice of terms of workflow change is worth the savings in grey hairs and stabbage. :P

*comforting pats*

Personally, I think these days that any text editor that can't handle 50MB files is doing it wrong (admittedly, I have different requirements, and have only done this with plain text editors). :P

[callistra.livejournal.com]

:-)
Next time, I'm locking down comments when I whine about word LOL

If Notetab handled comments and reviewing, then I'd be perfectly happy.

[leahcim.livejournal.com]

Sorry. :P

Though I can't help but note that this mirrors linstar's love-hate relationship with MSN Messenger. It frequently dies horribly, yet she continues this dysfunctional relationship solely because the alternative I installed for her doesn't support a random minor feature (http://www.kiwee.com/platform/im/category.pd?path=94374) she's addicted to. :P

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Is that stuff we can't see anyway cos we use trillian and pidgin?
:-)

[leahcim.livejournal.com]

Yes. Doesn't seem to stop us from communicating with people though. :)

[linstar.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I like my bear kisses :P

word

[khoath.livejournal.com]

There's allways open office. Also, I have found that computers that tend to behave most of the time missbehave in word if they have any flakey ram or slight bit rot. It only takes 1 bit in a million to go wrong for things to go bad terribly. background save is just broken, turn it off. Track changes plays havock with my speech software so I don't use it, can't help there. I too love note tab pro, so much I bought it, then again I edit stuff in ed so who am I to talk?