Apparent Limit on Number of Words in Single Project

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hharris
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Joined: 2005-11-02 07:45:14
Location: Pasadena, CA

Apparent Limit on Number of Words in Single Project

Post by hharris »

I’m using Nisus Writer Express version 2.7 running on Mac OS X 10.4.7 and I’ve come across a problem that is slowly bringing my project to a standstill. About 60,000 words into my novel I started having the software freeze up on me. The application no longer accepts input and the ability to select goes haywire. I can fix this problem by quiting and restarting, but a few thousand words later the same problem occurs.
I suppose I could work around this problem by dividing my novel into sections less than 60,000 words but this is a fairly major inconvenience in that it complicates the process of creating a single work. Or I could regularly restart the program, but this is nuisance I’d like to avoid. :(

Henry
Jzents
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Location: USA

Post by Jzents »

How much memory do you have installed? What other applications are running at this time? Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling NWE to make sure you do not have a corrupt file? Have you checked your fonts in Font Book to insure that none of the fonts in your novel are corrupt? Just a few questions that need to be thought about. Cheers!
Jeffrey Zents
jzents@mac.com
cstross
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Post by cstross »

I've worked on documents as long as 150,000 words in NWE without freezes or excessive slowdowns (saving takes longer, of course, but NWE does its stuff much as on a 60,000 word document).
hharris
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Joined: 2005-11-02 07:45:14
Location: Pasadena, CA

Problem getting worse — need advice

Post by hharris »

I have 768 MB memory with no other applications running. The problem appears to be getting worse. Instead of days before this appears (after restarting Nisus) it is now hours.

Can you tell me how to do the remedies you recommended, or at least point me at the instructions? How do I uninstall and reinstall NWE? How do I check my fonts? I've never had to do this for any application and I've been using Macs heavily since 1984. Any advice you could give me would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Henry 8)
hharris
Posts: 10
Joined: 2005-11-02 07:45:14
Location: Pasadena, CA

Problem getting worse — need advice

Post by hharris »

I have 768 MB memory with no other applications running. The problem appears to be getting worse. Instead of days before this appears (after restarting Nisus) it is now hours.

Can you tell me how to do the remedies you recommended, or at least point me at the instructions? How do I uninstall and reinstall NWE? How do I check my fonts? I've never had to do this for any application and I've been using Macs heavily since 1984. Any advice you could give me would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Henry 8)
Jzents
Posts: 49
Joined: 2005-08-03 12:17:16
Location: USA

Re: Problem getting worse — need advice

Post by Jzents »

hharris wrote:I have 768 MB memory with no other applications running. The problem appears to be getting worse. Instead of days before this appears (after restarting Nisus) it is now hours.

Can you tell me how to do the remedies you recommended, or at least point me at the instructions? How do I uninstall and reinstall NWE? How do I check my fonts? I've never had to do this for any application and I've been using Macs heavily since 1984. Any advice you could give me would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Henry 8)
Here is how to check fonts. Open Font Book in the applications folder. Click on All Fonts in the left-hand column. Then click on one of the fonts. Now do a Command-A. Now click on the file menu and click on "Validate Fonts". Depending on the number of fonts and your system this can take a few minutes. Once it is done, make sure you have a green check mark against all fonts, if not, you have a damaged font. I would either replace it or at least disable that one and see if that helps your issue. Cheers!
Jeffrey Zents
jzents@mac.com
hharris
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Joined: 2005-11-02 07:45:14
Location: Pasadena, CA

Results of recommended procedure

Post by hharris »

I performed the recomended procedure on the font book and found a problem with a font "mari" which I removed.

However, independently of this, I've found that dividing my novel into two parts (35,000 words each) solves the problem.

At this point I'm not sure if my font problem caused the apparent limit on number of words.

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who's created projects greater than 63,000 words.

Thanks!

Henry
ssampler
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Joined: 2006-06-29 07:56:30
Location: Hudson River Valley, NY

Post by ssampler »

In OS X 10.4.7 PB G4 1.5 and 2 G memory, I comfortably work on documents of about 165,000 words, including lists, tables, notes.

At 200,000 words typing is fine. Search and replace of a common phrase (about 10,000 occurrences) led to no-response and the necessity of force-quitting. This is an extreme test, as NWX saves the location of all theoccurrences so that the operation can be undone. Search and replace of 1,100 occurrences of a less-common phrase took well under 30 seconds.

So it looks like capacity is memory-dependent. Adding more memory would be your cheapest solution to working with bigger documents.

Word, on the other hand, copes well with documents of over 400,000 words.

So, Nisus folks: room for improvement here. How about some long-term work on memory handling?
Last edited by ssampler on 2006-09-20 09:01:34, edited 2 times in total.
Ryan
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Post by Ryan »

A good request. I suppose that would explain why I don't run into this issue, because my computers all have absurd amounts of memory.

Tough luck for everyone else, eh?
Anne Cuneo
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Post by Anne Cuneo »

I’m using Nisus Writer Express version 2.7 running on Mac OS X 10.4.7 and I’ve come across a problem that is slowly bringing my project to a standstill. About 60,000 words into my novel I started having the software freeze up on me. The application no longer accepts input and the ability to select goes haywire.
A bit late, but I wanted to tell you that I just completed a novel of over 80'000 words in one single file with the same computer as yours, the same memory, and with lots of dictionaries open at the same time, plus, plus plus… and it worked beautifully. At the end I had to change the name of one of the characters, and I did it in a couple of strokes, it took about 40 second to change that name 621 times. It opens in 14 seconds (I just checked), and saves in less.
Have you tried to repair your permissions and to do a bit of a maintainance job?
But maybe you have solved the problem in between…
Anne
hharris
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Joined: 2005-11-02 07:45:14
Location: Pasadena, CA

Post by hharris »

You may be right. Spotlight just stopped working for me also. I've just downloaded Onyx to perform the maintainance you recommend. I've been using Macs since 1984 and this is first time that was required. Oh well, as things get more complicated I guess I have to expect this. (I'm so spoiled...)

BTW, I did finish the novel (70,000 words) with help from the excellent Nisus support team, and it's now in the hands of a couple of publishers. Kudos to Nisus.

Henry
Anne Cuneo
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Post by Anne Cuneo »

Try ToolsX3, it's more reliable than Onyx; there is a daily, a weekly and a monthly script to run (takes moments), and you have no worries then… And don't forget the so-called Mac Aspirin: reconstructing the desktop on a regular basis (ToolsX3 does it for you if you ask nicely).
Let me know what happens with your novel, I'll tell you what happens with mine…

The first time I tried a novel in a single file in Nisus Express, Nisus people were also very helpful for me, especially as I was mad at them and probably not particularly nice, since in Nisus Classic I had had a novel 300'000 words long, in one file! And no problem, of course.
Anne
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