problem with 'word' document - please can you help me??

Question

I am in the prcess of doing a lengthy report on word. It currently consists of 300kb (whatever that means). I am trying to add additional information to it but when I try to save it this message comes up. "the disk is full trying to write to c::. free some space on this drive or save document to another disk. I don't know what this means as computers are far from a strength of mine. I have deleted some old word documents and photos but I still can't save this piece of work. I tried to start a new document on word just with a couple of letters on it and is saved that ok. Any ideas as to what I need to do next. I'll go bonkers if I loose this piece of work. I also tried to copy part of it onto a new word document thinking that I might be able to save it in two halves but I can't copy and paste it cos it says that there are too many alterations on it and that it won't save all the work. I don't know what "save doc to another disk means. Help!! what do I do now??

I think I'm going to cry now. I tried 'dewcoons' suggestion as it sounded really simple - thanks for that - i saved 104370k so eagerly went back to my word doc to save it and i still get the same message. I have been working on this document for about 2 months and it hasn't been a problem until now. I can't even add another small paragraph and save it without the same message coming up.

I have also emptied the recycle bin

right, I think I'm getting somewhere now. I tried to copy and paste a para at a time as suggested by 'ray diat' that worked a treat until I got to pages with formatting and it wouldn't copy these pages. So then I realised that all I needed to do was copy and paste my last paragraph onto a new word doc which I have done and hey presto it has worked. Thanks to Michael A. I think you must be right re the macros.

'lilliza' told me not to copy onto c drive but i didn't even know i was doing that. As I said I'm a bit rubbish with pc's but I was copying the document into 'my documents' and then the error message came up which i told you about earlier. I don't know what drive 'my documents' is on and didn't know I had a D drive. Anyway in my haste I have now deleted a load of stuff which I wish I hadn't but at least I know I can do my doc in two parts or more. Thanks again to Michael A who said not to do a file this big in word. I honestly didn't know it was an issue.

Answer 1

It means that your hard drive is so full, it does not have to space to save the file. You tried to delete some other files to make room, but it did not work. These means that you have you PC set up so that anytime you delete a file, rather then actual deleting it, it is moved to the Recycle Bin. So to get the space back, you have to empty the Recycle Bin.

If you go into your Start Menu and look under Accessories, then then System Tools, you will find Disk Cleanup. Run that and it will remove any temporary files and unneeded system files from your computer. It can also compress some of the older, rarely used files. That should make enough room for you to save your Word file.

Answer 2

Possibly this is a permissions thing. If you do have enough space then it must be that you are not regarded as the owner of the document.

What you could do is press Ctrl + A (to select all the text) and then press Edit and then Copy. Then open WordPad:

Start >> Programs >> Accessories >> WordPad

Then click on Edit and then Paste and the contents of your Word document should be pasted into a blank WordPad document. At least you should be able to save the text from the Word document but you may lose some formatting.

If you are using Windows XP Home edition then you will need to reboot and go into safe mode by tapping the F8 key and log in as the Administrator. Then go to the folder were the Word doc is stored and right click the doc and select Properties and then Security. Then change the ownership and permissions of the doc.

Answer 3

Figure out a way to save this document someplace other than your c: drive--do you have a floppy disc or a CD burner? Do you have a USB port so you could use a USB storage drive stick?

If you have a floppy drive, a disc holds 1440kb minus a little for overhead, so it should fit there. If your computer is too new to have a floppy drive, it either has a CD-R or CD-RW drive, or it has a USB port (a rectangular socket usually marked with a tiny symbol--an arrow coming up from a dot, with two branches from the arrow, one which goes to a dot, while the other goes to a square). You can use the CD drive to save it--get a young person to help you if you don't know how, they burn discs to share music all the time. Another option is to buy a USB storage drive--small ones are really cheap ($10 or under), and that is all you'd need for this project (though for a few dollars more you could get a better one--and you probably should get one that will hold at least 512 MB, since your drive is full--when you get done saving your document and get a little time, you need to clean up your C: drive--take all of you documents, pictures, etc. off your computer and put them on that drive (or at least put a backup copy on the drive). Then follow what some of the other posters listed to free up some extra space using disc cleanup. Finally, go to start->control panel->Add/Remove Programs to see if there is any software you don't use. (Don't remove software you haven't heard of, remove that junk you put on there two years ago but don't use anymore--just throw out the stuff you know is garbage, don't throw it out just because you don't know what it is).

Answer 4

The memory of your hard disk is full. Back-up all your files onto a flash, diskette or floppy and then delete all files in your drive C with the exception of your present project file.

Avoid a single large file like this in 'word' document. What you should do is to break the files - Project file 1, Project file 2, Project file 3 etc.

Answer 5

I think it might be that you have too many fields in this document, such as macros or other commands. Cut and paste each para into a blank screen and save as you go along to find out where this error occurs. Good luck!

Answer 6

Don't save it in your C drive then. You can delete as much documents as you want but your C drive will still be full cos C drive is where all your programs are. If you want to free space in your C drive you got to remove/uninstall one or two programs depending on the space that you need. I suggest use a thumbdrive or save it in an entire different location using the save as option. Save it in either 'my documents' or D drive or if you prefer, directly into your thumdrive/flashdrive. Don't save your work files in your C drive.

Answer 7

This is telling you that the memory space of your hard drive is at capacity. You have to get rid of some useless stuff on the computer to free up some space.

Answer 8

You need to clear up 300kb of space then, and make sure you empty your recycle bin.

300kb is kilobytes, there are 1000 in a gigabyte (gb) and 1000 bytes in a kilobyte.

Answer 9

If this is a backwards p type mark then that is a paragraph mark and you can hide it by clicking on the Home tab then click on the backwards p. If this is not a paragraph mark then, select the mark and copy it. Click on the Home tab, Replace and in the Find What field paste the item copied. In the Replace with field, leave it blank. Replace All.

Answer 10

do this click om my computer, right click, properties,general, disk clean up, if the does not work , folloow those steps again but this time click tools defragment disc, this will create free space in yr pc, good luck