CRASHES AND CORRUPTION

SAVING

Save Your Documents the Best Way

The Annoyance:

I've deleted everything in this document except one paragraph, and the file is still far too large to send via email.

The Fix:

This happens because Word's fast-saving option works by appending the latest changes to the end of the file instead of saving the entire file. So when you delete most of the document, Word adds the details of that deletion to the end of the document, but the material remains in the document file. This not only makes the file size even bigger than it was before, but it can be indiscreet or even dangerous when you share documents with other peopleyour documents may still contain material that you deleted long ago.

Unless you're working with huge files on a slow computer, fast saving won't usually save you enough time to compensate for its disadvantages.

Word performs a normal save, which is called a full save , every 15th fast save, or when you've made so many changes to the document that it makes more sense to rewrite the file than to append further changes. However, you shouldn't rely on this full save to ensure that your document contains only the data you think it does.


Tip: In a full-saved file, the actual order of characters stored in the file is the same as their order in the document; in a fast-saved file, the order is different. Corruption is more likely to occur in fast-saved files than in full-saved files. Fast saving works only on local drives, not on network drives .

To turn off fast saving, choose Tools Options, click the Save tab, and uncheck the "Allow fast saves box. While you're on the Save tab, modify some other save options:

  • Check the "Always create backup copy" box to make Word keep a backup copy that consists of the previously saved version of the document. (See the "How Word Creates the Backup Copy" sidebar.)

  • Specify whether you want Word to perform background saves by checking or unchecking the "Allow background saves" box. Allowing background saves enables you to resume work more quickly after issuing a Save command, because you can continue working while Word completes the save. However, it usually makes each save take longer. Unless your documents are huge and your computer slow, or your documents are saved on a server to which you have a slow connection, background saves are unlikely to save you much time. Word displays a pulsing disk icon in the status bar to indicate a background save.

Save All Open Documents at Once

The Annoyance:

I've got a stack of documents open. Why must I save changes to them one by one? Where's the Save All command when you need it?

The Fix:

It's hiding. Shift-click the File menu, and then click Save All. Don't press Alt+Shift+F to display the File menu: that doesn't work, and the key combination might be assigned to a command or a macro.

If you find Shift-clicking the File menu awkward , put the Save All command directly on a menu or toolbar. Choose Tools Customize, click the Commands tab, and verify that the appropriate template is selected in the "Save in drop-down list. With the File item selected in the Categories listbox, scroll down the Commands list to the Save All item, and then drag it to the menu or toolbar of your choice. Shift-click the File menu and choose Save All to make sure that the changes to the template get saved.

HOW WORD CREATES THE BACKUP COPY

Checking the "Always create backup copy" box on the Save tab of the Options dialog box ensures that you will always have a backup copy of the document you're working with. This backup is a copy of the next -to-last saved version of the document, so it's not necessarily the same as the current saved version of the file.

You can't make the backup copy exactly the same as the current version by saving the file twice in succession (for example, by pressing Ctrl+S twice), because Word will save the document only when it is "dirty"that is, when it contains unsaved changes. After the first save, the document is clean until you change it. Still, by saving your documents frequently, you can keep the backup copies very close to the current versions. (See "Double-Save a Document" in Chapter 8 for a macro that works around this.)

When Word saves a document and fast saving is turned off, Word actually saves the current document to a temporary file in the same folder as the active document. When the save is complete, Word either deletes or renames the previously saved version of the file, freeing up the file's "real" name, and then renames the temporary file with the real name .

Word performs this apparently unnecessary shuffle to reduce the possibility of losing changes to the file while the save operation is happening. This loss is unlikely to occur but can be catastrophic if it doesthe entire document may be corrupted.

If you check the "Always create backup copy" checkbox, Word renames the previously saved version of the file as the backup copy rather than deleting it. The temporary files can provide a safety net if your document gets badly mangled (see "Recover a Document After a Crash," later in this chapter).

Word's fast-saving feature appends the latest changes to the end of the file instead of writing a whole new file, so it doesn't work with the "Always create backup copy" option.


Close All Open Documents at Once

The Annoyance:

Can I close all my open documents at the same time?

The Fix:

Yep. Shift-click the File menu, and then click Close All. You'll be prompted to save any unsaved changes, as usual. Alternatively, if you find Shift-clicking awkward, you can choose Tools Customize and put a Close All button on a toolbar or menu.

You can also close all documents by exiting Word and restarting it. However, what you'll more often want to do is close all the open documents except the one you're working on. To do so, you need a macro; see "Close All Documents Except the Current One" in Chapter 8.

Change Word's Default Folder for Saving Documents

The Annoyance:

Word always wants me to save my documents in the My Documents folder. I suppose this folder makes sense for many users, but I have other ideas.

The Fix:

You can change the default folder easily. Choose Tools Options, click the File Locations tab (see Figure 2-2), select Documents in the "File types list, and click the Modify button. In the Modify Location dialog box, select the folder you want to use, and click the OK button.


Tip: From the File Locations tab of the Options dialog box, you can also change the default folders for clip-art pictures, user templates, workgroup templates, AutoRecover files, tools, and startup files.
Figure 2-2. You can change the default folder for saving documents by using the File Locations tab of the Options dialog box.

Find a Document You've Lost

The Annoyance:

I work on so many documents, I keep losing them.

The Fix:

Short of reorganizing your filesystem, your best bet is to search for the lost documents.

Word 2003 and Word XP provide the Search task pane (see Figure 2-3) for either basic or advanced searches. Choose File File Search in Word 2003 or File Search in Word XP to display the Search task pane. Click the Advanced File Search link or the Basic File Search link to toggle from one mode to another.

Basic searching casts a wide net, searching for your search terms in filenames, keywords, and contents. It even looks for matches for different forms of the words you've specified in the file contents. For example, if you use "buy" as a search term , Word finds documents containing "bought" in their contents as well. You can narrow the search by including multiple words.

Advanced searching lets you not only specify which property you're searching for but also create complex searches. You can use "And" and "Or" operators to relate the conditions to each other.

Figure 2-3. The Search task pane toggles between a Basic File Search and an Advanced File Search.

For advanced searching, you may find it easier to use the File Search dialog box (in Word 2003 and Word XP) or the Find dialog box (in Word 2000). Choose File Open, click the Tools button in the Open dialog box, and choose Search (for Word 2003 or Word XP) or Find (for Word 2000) from the drop-down menu. The File Search dialog box (see Figure 2-4) offers Basic and Advanced tabs that provide the same options as the Search task pane but give you more room to see what youre doing. The Find dialog box in Word 2000 provides a similar set of options but doesn't divide them into Basic and Advanced searches. The Find dialog box also lets you save searches you've performed, which is useful if you often need to find documents that match a certain set of criteria.

Figure 2-4. The File Search dialog box gives you more space for putting together complex searches and examining their results.


Tip: If you tend to lose documents, you might also want to add the most important documents to the Work menu. (See "Create a Work Menu" in Chapter 1.) Even if the menu grows uncomfortably long, you won't lose the documents on it.

Keep Separate Versions of the Same Document

The Annoyance:

My office has a complex round- robin procedure for creating and reviewing documents: agendas , minutes, reports , you name it. We usually save a new copy of each document after each stage of the review, with a suffix of the last reviewer's initials to distinguish between them. I'm wondering if we can use versions instead.

The Fix:

Word's versions feature might help here. It lets you keep two or more versions in the same document, and you can switch back and forth between versions as necessary.

To save your edits as a version, choose File Versions to display the Versions dialog box (see Figure 2-5) and click the Save Now button. Enter comments about the version in the Save Version dialog box, and click the OK button.

Figure 2-5. Select the "Automatically save a version on close" box if you want Word to create a new version of the document each time you finish working with it.

Once you've created multiple versions of a document, you can open one of the versions by choosing File Versions, selecting the version you want, and clicking the Open button. You can delete a version from the Versions dialog box by selecting the version and clicking the Delete button.

DISADVANTAGES OF VERSIONS

Versions have several disadvantages:

  • Only one person can work with a versioned document at a time.

  • A document with versions typically contains text that you can't see in any given version. When distributing a versioned document, you must double-check that it doesn't contain any content that is inappropriate for the recipients. Generally, this means deleting all but the relevant version of the document. Alternatively, you can open the desired version of the file and choose File Save As to save it as a separate file.

  • A document containing versions can quickly balloon to a large file size.


Remove Personal Data from a Document

The Annoyance:

Last month, a colleague blew the whistle on a few corners our boss had been cutting. She anonymously dropped HR a document, but it turned out that her name was hidden in it somewhereso now she's no longer working here.

The Fix:

In each document you save, Word stores your username (as entered on the User Information tab of the Options dialog box) and other identifying information. Word 2003 and Word XP let you easily remove personal data from a document; Word 2000 does not, but you can choose File Properties and manually delete particular items of information.

To remove personal data from Word 2003/XP documents, choose Tools Options, click the Security tab, and check the "Remove personal information from file properties on save box. For security, you may also want to check the "Warn before printing, saving or sending a file that contains tracked changes or comments" box so that Word prevents you from saving or sending a file that contains text that may be hidden from you.

After choosing these options, you must save the document to make the options take effect.

Remove Office-Specific Tags from Web Pages

The Annoyance:

When Word renders a document into HTML, it puts weird tags in it. How can I remove the excess tags?

The Fix:

The tags you're objecting to are the Office-specific tags that Word uses to store information needed to re-create the document in its entirety. These tags store all kinds of information that's not displayed in the document, such as author and editing information; menu, toolbar, and keyboard customizations in the document; and even VBA code (macros, user forms, and classes). This extra information not only makes your web pages larger than necessary but also threatens your privacy.


Tip: The process of exporting an entire document to HTML so that it can be brought back into Word without any loss is called round-tripping . Word's "Web Page" and "Single File Web Page" formats save the data for round-tripping, while the "Web Page, Filtered" format does not. Use "Web Page, Filtered" for pages you want to put on your web site, but be warned that Word's HTML is verbose. If you know HTML, you may prefer to save a document in "Web Page, Filtered" format, open it in a text editor or HTML editor, and strip out unnecessary information manually before posting it to your web site.

To get rid of the Office-specific tags in Word 2003 or Word XP, choose File Save as Web Page and then choose Web Page, Filtered in the "Save as type drop-down list. Specify the filename, folder, and title, and click Save. When Word warns you that Office-specific tags will be removed (see Figure 2-6), click the Yes button.

Figure 2-6. When saving a Word document as a web page, you can strip out the Office-specific tags by using the "Web Page, Filtered" format.


Tip: Word 2000 doesn't offer a built-in option for stripping out Office-specific tags. Your best bet is to use a third-party utility, such as the free HTMLTidy (http://tidy. sourceforge .net).


Word Annoyances
Word Annoyances: How to Fix the Most ANNOYING Things about Your Favorite Word Processor
ISBN: 0596009542
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 91

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