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Before it's too late...
Jul. 14th, 2014 05:24 pmI got to wondering the other day about how to go about delivering a job for which, to make things easier, I've combined a number of related files into one Word "master document."
I still haven't figured out the answer, other than to find advice along the following lines scattered throughout the Web:
Oh, well... I'm off to split the file! Scramble. Scramble. Scramble!
* * * UPDATE / ELABORATION * * *
Where did I get the idea I had to "split" anything? I came to this conclusion after opening one of the files that was part of the master document, only to find that the translations and edits done to the document were not there.
In my haste to make sure my work would not be lost in the event of a "master document corruption event," it did not occur to me to wonder where that work was stored (as it had to have been, since everything came up properly upon opening the master document).
This morning, it did occur to me, and the answer was quite simple and a result of inattention on my part.
It turns out the original files that are part of the master are "doc" files. Apparently, when the master is saved, all of the files are saved as "docx" files, which is where all the changes are. (I knew there had to be a logical explanation somewhere!)
What I had done earlier was open a "doc" file instead of a "docx" file. The only mitigating circumstance here (assuming you'd call it that) is the fact that the job contains a bunch of files with very similar names, so I just clicked on the first file having an appropriate name, which happened to have a "doc" extension.
My current solution is to make regular incremental backups of the directory in which the constituent files are kept, and it will be these constituent files that will be sent to the client.
I still haven't figured out the answer, other than to find advice along the following lines scattered throughout the Web:
The Master Document feature in Word remains word processing's answer to Conan the Destroyerand
There are two kinds of Master Documents: Those that are corrupt and those that will be corrupt soon.Lucky me.
Oh, well... I'm off to split the file! Scramble. Scramble. Scramble!
Where did I get the idea I had to "split" anything? I came to this conclusion after opening one of the files that was part of the master document, only to find that the translations and edits done to the document were not there.
In my haste to make sure my work would not be lost in the event of a "master document corruption event," it did not occur to me to wonder where that work was stored (as it had to have been, since everything came up properly upon opening the master document).
This morning, it did occur to me, and the answer was quite simple and a result of inattention on my part.
It turns out the original files that are part of the master are "doc" files. Apparently, when the master is saved, all of the files are saved as "docx" files, which is where all the changes are. (I knew there had to be a logical explanation somewhere!)
What I had done earlier was open a "doc" file instead of a "docx" file. The only mitigating circumstance here (assuming you'd call it that) is the fact that the job contains a bunch of files with very similar names, so I just clicked on the first file having an appropriate name, which happened to have a "doc" extension.
My current solution is to make regular incremental backups of the directory in which the constituent files are kept, and it will be these constituent files that will be sent to the client.
