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Peggy Lucero wondered: <<Team members are making their updates to a 555
page System Design Document. I got this email today: "We are having
some issues with Word crashing when we open and close the SDD. I'm
thinking that we might be running into a limitation in Word with
respect to large files (the SDD is currently 19MB). Have you ever
worked with master documents? You can have multiple documents linked
to a single master, so you can edit the individual pieces without
losing the ability to view and print the whole document through the
master.">>
I've worked with larger documents, largely due to poor thinking about
including graphics rather than large numbers of pages, but it was
always larger than I'd be comfortable with. Under no circumstances
should you use Master Documents. They are widely considered, including
by many Microsoft MVPs, to be a source of inevitable disaster. The only
human being who seems able to use them with any reliability is Steve
Hudson, and he's not from this planet. I mean that in a good way. <g>
<<All I can think of is to break document into 3-4 smaller docs (SDD
Part I, SDD Part II... etc.)>>
Sounds like the most effective way to do this. Among other things, it
lets you distribute each part separately for review and lets different
authors or editors work independently on each part; with a single
document, only one person at a time can work on the project, and that's
probably not so efficient.
You'll want to build your own version of a master document to handle
things like the index and table of contents. Jean Weber
(www.jeanweber.com) offers good advice on how to do this in her books
on mastering Word rather than letting it master you. If you're willing
to do your homework rather than purchase her book and get a neatly
packaged solution (false economy?), you basically need to research the
correct use of "includetext" and "reference document" (RD) fields.
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