Recommendations for organising files and managing cross-references

I would strongly recommend creating the document in a single file. It will make numbering, references, TOC, index, etc. much easier. I have created a document with 756 pages, 770 footnotes, 218 inline graphics and a few wrapped ones, and 349,598 words. It was totally doable.

There are too many stories in this forum from people who lost all their work when it was stored on OneDrive. It is certainly OK to use it as a manually implemented back-up destination, but I would recomment going to File>Options>Save and check the box for Save to Computer by Default and set the Default Local FIle Location.

When you do that, you only have yourself to blame if you lose your document.

I'll qualify this by saying I did this in Word 2003. Theoretically, more recent versions should be even more capable of handling such large files. I do find that loading the file initially can be slow (hitting Ctrl+End to get to the bottom of the document helps to speed up pagination), but it handles reasonably well after that. As noted, almost all my images are In Line with Text, which generally puts the least load on Word. The organization of that particular document was fairly straightforward: it was a transcript of 456 letters some written to but mostly written by my father when he was in Italy in WWII, plus 11 appendixes with additional information. I used a minimum of styles: Headings 1 and 2 for larger divisions, Heading 3 (numbered) for the identification of each letter, Body Text for the letter content, Closing for the signature line, and so on. I have prepared a number of more elaborate books (another letter compilation was over 600 pages, and there have been other shorter but more complex ones). In no case have I been tempted to split the document up.

Depending on the document, I do use the cloud for backup, but I don't depend on it as my sole backup. I use it primarily for saving things I find on the web.

I don't use OneDrive because I think it's clunky to use, and there are instances (as evidenced in this forum) that it is sometimes unstable--probably because developers were tweaking it behind the scenes. I don't like subscriptions, so I use pCloud. It gives you lifetime storage for one payment--just like a perpetual license. I've been using it for several years, and I never once had an occasion where my files mysteriously disappeared or I couldn't get access. It can be synchronized with your local drive too.

Whenever I create a new Word document and save it for the first time, a macro asks me if I want to revision it and whether I want to store revisions to my local drive, or to both it and pCloud. If I say yes, it creates a revision folder at those locations, and stores a copy of the document. It's useful when authoring because I can go back in time and retrieve an earlier work if I need to. After the document is finalized, I disable the revisioning flag, and delete the revision folder(s).

If one is working on an important document, they should be backing it up, the same as they should if using a master document. If they they are backing up files, they can always recover a corrupted document whether it be a single document or a master.

Yes, I use Zotero for citations too. It's not only free (I like free), but it also saves copies of the sources.

Hello Stefan,

You may want to look at my article: Managing Large Word Files and Combining Documents Into One File In Microsoft Word.

I strongly advise against writing/editing any part of your thesis in the online app. Unfortunately, it seems that when files are stored on OneDrive, the default is to open them in the online app. My opinions on various Word offerings in a pdf.

Keep good backups and do not rely on AutoSave. We have seen many instances here of lost work from such reliance.

See **** **Automatically backup Word documents by Graham Mayor, MVP**.

If it worked well, this would be a good subject for the **** Master Documents "Feature" in Microsoft Word. Unfortunately, unless you are very careful, there is a real chance of losing all of your work when using this. (I do not know how high a chance, just that it is real.) Office Watch recently published a **** page on safely using Master Documents.

Remember: backups!