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I hope someone can help me with this problem we've got. I'm relatively new to tech writing and working alone at the moment. We create our On-Line help files with Word and the Microsoft Help Workshop and I know almost nothing about macros.
Here's my problem. The size of my help file has ballooned. A file that I compiled a few months ago, using Word 6 and HCW 3 was a little over 1 MB in size. A help file that I'm working on now with Word97 and HCW 4, and with a similar amount of information in it is over 8MB.
I'm having the same problem with context sensitive help. The earlier file, created with Word 6 and HCW 3 is just over 400 KB. The new file, created with What's This Help Composer, Word97 and HCW4 is over 6MB.
I've set compression to Maximum in HCW, but that only reduced the file size by about 400KB. I'm assuming that this is a Word97 problem. I have noticed that rtf files that I've moved from Word 6 to 97 seem to increase in size by about 50%, but even that doesn't seem to fully account for the huge jump in file size.
Does someone have suggestions for me on how to reduce the file size. I can go back to HCW3 and Word6 if absolutely necessary, but it would be a bit of a problem to do so.
Also, I tried posting this to Winhlp-L, but got it back as undeliverable with the message "Unknown Host". Could someone subscribed to both lists, please e-mail me the correct address for posting messages to Winhlp-L. Thanks.
Andrea
Andrea Kelso
Technical Writer, Astound incorporated
andreak -at- astound -dot- com
My opinions don't necessarily agree with those of the company, they don't even necessarily agree with my other opinions.
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