When Does My File Become Too Large?

-- by Loretta --

Adding pictures to the text enlarges the memory size of your document dramatically. After about 10 pictures, you may want to save this section as a separate file so that the file does not get too large and unwieldy. This is a good time to make sure you have made a backup of your document before proceeding. If you do not like the results, then you still have the original document. See Dividing Your Document for one technique of doing this.

Dividing your document. When, on our older computer, the problems that came with working with a very large document became unbearable, we decided to split the document into two or more pieces. One way this can be done is by marking the first half of the document, then under the ‘File’ drop down menu in the upper left hand corner of the word processor screen, choose the ‘Save As’ option. Then give the first file a new name. You can then mark the second half of the file and give it a new name under the ‘Save As’ option. For example our original “FamilyHistory” file was made into two files that we called “FamilyHistoryA” and “FamilyHistoryB”. We then proceeded to make “FamilyHistoryC”. Each file became a more manageable size.

Remember to back up your work regularly. See Make Sure You Backup Your Work!.