Does MsWord have a limit?

IThinkICan29 · Nov 22, 2006

I'm pretty deep into my Nano (70000+ words), and wondering if there's a limit to how many words (pages, characters, etc) Word will allow for one document. I'm worried that I'll be typing and discover that the last twenty pages of my Nano will be lost forever because I breached some limit and my computer no longer beeps, blows, or whistles at me to let me know I've done something wrong.

K1P1 · Nov 22, 2006

Good question. I tried to research it, but couldn't find the answer. You might ask a moderator to move this over to the Tech Help forum.

ETA: If you just have text, no special formatting, no images, no tables, then I can't imagine it would be too big for Word to handle.

Soccer Mom · Nov 22, 2006

You'll be fine. I had my rough draft in a previous novel (178K) all in a single Word document. You'll be just fine.

BTW- I edited that 178K monster down to just 105K.

It was hell.

alleycat · Nov 22, 2006

Generally the limit is 32MB for a pure text file on the later versions of Word. I'd have to look it up for earlier versions. 32MB would be a HUGE text file.

ac

IThinkICan29 · Nov 22, 2006

Thank you all so much for the quick responses!

Edited to Add: Soccermom you're my hero. I really hope my WIP doesn't turn into that type of monster.

Kentuk · Nov 22, 2006

I've had MS Word choke but I have a wimpy computer.

Sage · Nov 22, 2006

alleycat said:
Generally the limit is 32MB for a pure text file on the later versions of Word. I'd have to look it up for earlier versions. 32MB would be a HUGE text file.

ac

based on the size of my current WIP & the amount of words in it, you can almost estimate file size as 100 words per kilobyte (about as accurate as figuring out word count by using pages). So, yeah, a novel at 32MB would have more problems than not being able to save any more in that file.

Vincent · Nov 22, 2006

So... about 3 million words? And that scares you?

Think big, people.

Bartholomew · Nov 23, 2006

I have all of Robert Jordon's WOT series in .DOC format.

One. Single. File.

You'll be fine.

Does MsWord have a limit?

IThinkICan29

K1P1

Procrastination is its own reward

Soccer Mom

Crypto-fascist

alleycat

Still around

IThinkICan29

Kentuk

I want to write what I want to write

Sage

Supreme Guessinator

Vincent

Cheers

Bartholomew

Comic guy