breaking a big document into chunks

[darthkt]

I'm been writing a long document (300+ pages), with footnotes, in chunks (about 7 separate pieces). I'm maybe a third of the way there.

What is this the best approach for speed and stability? The current approach means I will have to cut, paste, and stitch the parts together, so footnotes will have to renumber, etc. etc. I've wondered if that's inviting problems, but I figured it was better than working with such a large (and growing) document all aloong.

Or is working with the document as one large file, from the start, the best?

Or, should I try to keep the chapters permanently separate, and have footnotes manually start at the appropriate numbers? Which sounds like a headache!

Unsure which is the best strategy, and I appreciate your wisdom.
--Kevin

[Groucho]

Hi, Kevin.
Like you, many times I happen to work in chunks. That's because frequently I get a file for each single chapter, or so. Then I assemble them by dragging the file icons in due order (chapter one, chapter two, and so on). No trouble so far. Notes are rearranged OK, that is they flow uninterruptedly unless you choose to restart numbering for each section (in a multi-section document).
Clearly a single-file approach, when possible, would be the best way, in my opinion. Even though it looks bulky and heavy.

Cheers. Henry.

[darthkt]

Hmm, what do you mean by dragging the icons? I would have done a select all/copy/paste into the new document. Perhaps you know something clever (or obvious), that I don't.

Glad the system works, though!

Kevin

[martin]

I think Henry is talking about dragging a file icon from the Finder to the text area of an open Nisus Writer document window. The contents of the dropped file are inserted into the text of the open document wherever you drop the icon.

[Groucho]

That's it, Martin. It is the way Apple's drag-and-drop works, and has been doing so for years.

Henry.

[darthkt]

Dang, I knew it was something obvious. Glad to learn it, though.

Martin, do you have an opinion on working with large documents--just stick with one big file, or work with chunks and sew it up together at the end?

Kevin T.

[martin]

I would divide the file up if you can. Not only because personally working on anything that large gives me headaches, but you also should stave off any performance issues you might otherwise have.

[jennydiski]

What would be the largest sized file (number of pages) that wouldn't cause performance problems?

[martin]

There's really no limit. It's going to come down to the hardware and type of content you have.

[lellius]

[quote="Groucho"]That's it, Martin. It is the way Apple's drag-and-drop works, and has been doing so for years.

Henry.[/quote]

Isn't there any macro which can do that easier like in Nisus Writer Classic 6.5?

[martin]

If your files followed a uniform naming convention (eg: "file-1", "file-2", etc) then such a macro would be possible.

[CrisB]

What would be the largest sized file (number of pages) that wouldn't cause performance problems?

I have several large files, over 100 pages, and I'm using 10.4.11 on a twin 867 G4. This is more or less the minimum configuration for Leopard.

My largest file is close to 500 pages. This takes over a minute to open. Typing is fine most of the time, and Find/Replace invariably works very speedily . All my data is in its own separate data partition on a cached second drive, yet the biggest slowdown is that a SAVE takes around a minute. And you have to wait for a manual save to finish before you can continue typing. An automatic save often loses data if you continue typing.

Another file is over 200 pages and suffers far less such problems. If it were a viable option, I would chunk down the 500 page file. I could break the 200 page down, and haven't yet done so. So I guess my answer is that 200 pages is the maximum viable file size for the outstanding NWPro 1.0.3 on my machine.

[jennydiski]

Thank you, that's really helpful.