[cj]

My sad, pitiful story... I am consulting for this company that is emphatic
that I use Word 2000, and only Word 2000, to write technical user guides for
them. The problem is that I know why people don't typically use Word to write
books of any kind... the software simply wasn't made to handle it. But stuck
with it, I am.

My book currently has 60 pages, a Table of Contents, an Index, a Table of
Figures, beaucoup TIFF images (screenshots and diagrams), beaucoup styles and
formatting. Let me clarify that the problems I am about to describe do not
apply to newly created Word documents; Word itself has not corrupted. In my
experience, it is only after a document is very full of pictures and special
formatting, and the more it is opened and closed, does this start to happen.

At first, everything went smoothly. Then after I hit about page 50, and
opening and closing the document at least a million times in that time
period, things started to go screwy. At first, it was just that all of my
images in the document would sudenly left-justify. Then, some bulletted
lists started losing their bullets, and so on. Until yesterday, the problems
had been growing in number, but were manageable. Now, I am facing an
entirely new animal. Yesterday when I came in, I found that some chapters had
taken on the headers of other chapters; some bulletted lists had lost their
bullets; almost all number lists had lost their numbers; some even pages had
taken on odd page footers and vice versa; my Index decided to pick a new font
and had ceased allowing me to update it; many scattered images had
left-justified themselves, and all of my text boxes had placed themselves in
other parts of the document.

The amount of time I am spending each day sorting this out is ridiculous. I
need to stop the file from growing worse, but cuttinga nd pasting it all into
a new document is not really an option at this point. It's just too big and
too much special formatting would need to be recreated. I considered moving
all the chapters intot heir own separate file, but then I can't use the
auto-Table of Contents, Table of Figures, or Inex features.

Word itself is not the problem, in that it is not corrupt itself.
Uninstalling and reinstalling would do nothing to foix this... this is not
the first time I've encountered this and any writer here knows that it si for
these same problems that I've described that you just don't use Word for
books. BUT I have no choice. I can either use Word (and the specific version
they've given me), or be out of a job. Believe me when I say that I have
talked myself blue telling them why Word is not the man for the job... but
they are unwilling to spring for anything else. :O( I am so very frustrated
and confused about hwo to proceed... and most importantly... how to stop this
file from corrupting further!

So... if anyone out there can help me figure out exactly how to stop this
file from corrupting, then I will be forever in your debt.

Thank you!
CJ

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

CJ wrote:
My sad, pitiful story... I am consulting for this company that is emphatic
that I use Word 2000, and only Word 2000, to write technical user guides for
them. The problem is that I know why people don't typically use Word to write
books of any kind... the software simply wasn't made to handle it. But stuck
with it, I am.
[.. bad times with loaded 60 page document ..]
So... if anyone out there can help me figure out exactly how to stop this
file from corrupting, then I will be forever in your debt.

It's hard to judge since we don't know anything about the template in
use, the styleset, and whether all formatting is done through styles or
rather clobbered together with direct formatting.

Unstable numbering (and all indents that go with numbered/bulleted
paragraphs) can most easily result if the numbered styles are not setup
very carefully according to "the book(s)." With that, I'm referring to
the following articles (I suggest you start with the top two articles,
and read the lower one when you plan on becoming a consultant in Word :-)):

See the section on "Numbering, bullets, Headings, Outlines" (by Shauna
Kelly)
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/
How to restart style-based numbering (by Margaret Aldis)
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/numbering/...artMethods.htm
Word's numbering explained (by John McGhie)
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/...gExplained.htm

The root of some of your problems might be Word's AutoFormat As You Type
settings (all that you are not sure you understand and absolutely need
should be off). You can in theory create individual (chapter )files and
compile them in the end to get all numbering strings and TOC/Index etc.
right, but I would not even consider that below 500 pages. Better to
link all images (without saving in the document).

Personally, I've worked with styled documents of up to 1000 pages in
Word 2000. It was not fun (because each FieldUpdate or Save was good for
a coffee break), but we got there.

Some (more) of the basics you might want to read up:

Working with Sections (by Dave Rado)
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting...thSections.htm

Creating a Template €“ The Basics (Part I, by Suzanne Barnhil)
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customizat...platePart1.htm

Creating a Template (Part II, by John McGhie)
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customizat...platePart2.htm

HTH
Robert
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