Problem with very large documents (on old Mac)

nehama

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I have a not-so-new Mac and when documents approach 1 MB there are all sorts of problems, which usually result in my not being able to open the file. Eventually, after dozens of failed attempts during which Microsoft quits repeatedly, I do succeed, only long enough to cut the file in half, so that I can access it again.
At this point, I'm trying to do the surgery before the crisis occurs, but is there any way to maintain such a large file in workable order without problems?
 

kuwisdelu

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What kinds of documents?

And by "Microsoft," what do you mean? Microsoft is a company, not an application. Do you mean Office? If so, which version? Also, how much RAM do you have and how old is "not-so-new"?
 

spiros

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You're probably working with MS Word, right?

If it's an older Mac, make sure you're using Word 2004 or Word v.X. If you're using Word 2008 on anything other than the newest Macs, you're asking for trouble.

It you're having difficulty handling large files in general, maybe you need to perform some Maintenance on the Mac itself. Applications like Yasu, Onyx etc are really good at clearing out caches, optimizing performance and generally keeping Macs in good health. These apps are also free (check out macupdate.com) It's a good idea to run an app like this once a week.

Regardless of the above, note that Word can generally have problems with large documents. But 1MB should work, albeit slowly. If this document is only text, how many words is it? I'm thinking 1MB document must have graphics. If you don't need to look at the graphics, there is an option in Word to "not show graphics/pictures" or something like that.

Hope this helps.
 

RJK

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Old computers and new software don't mix. Here are the minimum requirements for MS Office standard version:

Component Requirement
Computer and processor 500 megahertz (MHz) processor or higher
Memory 256 megabyte (MB) RAM or higher :roll: It runs slow with 1 gig
Hard disk 1.5 gigabyte (GB)

The software itself is using up all of your available processing. the poor computer is trying to cache the document piece by piece back and forth between a small part of your RAM and your hard drive.
 

Maryn

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While I'm not a Mac girl, I had a similar problem on my older computers. The problem was directly related to my undersized RAM. What solved it, as much as it could be solved, was
  • Closing other applications, including idle ones. AIM, Yahoo Messenger, weather notices, automatic updates which are not crucial (leave auto-update for virus and firewall protection running), music programs. These can collectively hog an enormous amount of RAM.
  • Determining how big a document the system can handle without a hitch. Note how many pages long it is when it starts acting up. For me, the first symptom was always a very short delay between what I keyed in and its appearance on my screen.
  • Breaking the large document into portions substantially smaller than the breaking point. Although I broke it into chapters, that was a pain in the butt. Later I wished I'd broken it into acts, each containing many chapters, because when I wanted to revise something, I could most easily find it by knowing where it was in the structure of the whole story.
  • Since any big document is an important document, and since glitches can be precursors to trouble, getting in the habit of zipping the files which make the whole, and emailing or otherwise saving them to something other than my own computer daily.
  • Being such a good girl Santa got me a newer used computer with much more RAM.

Maryn, who no longer has any vested interest in being good
 

kuwisdelu

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Just in case you don't know, to check your RAM, click the Apple->About This Mac and tell us what it says under "Memory."