Word & Long Docs (WAS re: Career advice-- focus on FM or Word?)

[Grant Hogarth]

Here is a recent piece from informit.com's "Productivity Applications"
articles (http://tinyurl.com/pt6fr) on working with long docs.
Obviously, we won't agree on all of the tips, but hey -- one size does
not always fit all!  <g>

Grant
=====================================================
Word 2003: Six Slick Tricks for Long Docs 

If you've ever juggled really long documents in Word, you know that they
can cause problems, particularly in the last-minute run for a deadline.
Laurie Rowell tells you how to manage these monsters, reduce stress,
finish faster, and minimize lockups.

Tips: 

1.	Draft a Set of Specifications   
2.	Use Outline View 
3.	Use a Master Document 
4.	Navigate with "Big Picture" Tools   
5.	Trim the Size of Graphic Content  
6.	Trim Versions and Saves 

LINK: <http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=467167>

Source: informit.com's Productivity Applications Articles
<http://www.informit.com/articles/index.asp?st=41293&l=1> 

-----Original Message-----
From: Diane Gaskill
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2006 6:12 AM
To: framers at FrameUsers.com
Subject: RE: Career advice--which application to focus on: FM or Word?

Word is also a memory hog.  It uses more than twice as much RAM as FM at
launch and sucks up more as time goes on.  It often runs out of memory
and sends error messages about no longer letting you undo anything.  If
you are working in a Word doc over 150 pages or so, you are definitely
taking chances and are likely to experience Word literally slowing down
and eventually grinding to a halt.

The Word autonumbering bug is horrendous to put it nicely.  Bulleted and
numbered lists are reformatted for you while you sleep (whether you want
them to be or not).  When you open the doc again, numbers have changed
to bullets, numeric lists are now alpha lists and start with e instead
of 1, or if you are lucky and they are still numbered, they start with
430 instead of 1.

This is not a joke folks, I see this every day at work.  We have created
some workarounds, but to answer Steve's question, it is NOT worth it.
Fortunately, we have also have FM, and are beginning to convince the
powers that be how much more stable and efficient FM is.

Diane