{"id":436053,"date":"2018-05-20T12:22:05","date_gmt":"2018-05-20T12:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/essaypaper.org\/you-need-to-be-a-top-file-manager-to-protect-your-manuscript\/"},"modified":"2018-10-24T08:57:44","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T08:57:44","slug":"you-need-to-be-a-top-file-manager-to-protect-your-manuscript","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/you-need-to-be-a-top-file-manager-to-protect-your-manuscript\/","title":{"rendered":"You Need To Be A Top File Manager To Protect Your Manuscript"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/span> 5<\/span>\/5<\/span><\/span> (1<\/span>) <\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"How<\/p>\n

How to use a file manager to protect your precious manuscript<\/h2>\n

Don\u2019t trust technology!<\/p>\n

If you are writing a book, you should never use one working copy of your manuscript file. Computer files can suffer from all sorts of problems such as file corruption, accidental deletions or worse, viruses.<\/p>\n

Many writers start writing a book using Microsoft Word or a similar word processor. Every day they add more text to the manuscript and think that by regularly hitting \u2018Save<\/em><\/strong>\u2018 everything is safe. Wrong. Very wrong.<\/p>\n

When you write a book, placing your trust in only one working copy of your manuscript on your computer is inviting disaster.<\/p>\n

Apart from file system issues, there are also other nasty possibilities. You might accidentally overwrite or delete files, your\u00a0hard drive could crash, a system\u00a0update could fail, or someone\u00a0might even steal your computer.<\/p>\n

For all these reasons, an author needs to know how to be an excellent file manager to safeguard all the work involved in writing a long document for a book.<\/p>\n

To keep your manuscript safe, take the following basic file management steps to make sure you will never lose all your hard work.<\/p>\n

1. Save one master file and individual chapter files<\/h3>\n

When you start writing a new book, set up a new folder in your file manager. Then from Word, save a new master file and chapter files to the folder. Use \u2018Save As<\/strong><\/em>\u2018 to create all the new files.<\/p>\n

\"Word<\/p>\n

\"Word<\/p>\n

\"Word<\/p>\n

Now you can work on writing each chapter in its own\u00a0individual Word file. This is a good writing habit to get into to avoid problems with large files. Even if the worst happens and a file gets corrupted, it will only affect one chapter file and not the whole manuscript.<\/p>\n

When you have finished each chapter, copy and paste the chapter into the master manuscript.<\/p>\n

2. Save a copy of your folder and files somewhere else.<\/h3>\n

Never trust your computer or laptop.<\/p>\n

There are many options to safeguard your book files. You can use a thumb\u00a0drive or sd card, or a free version of cloud drive services such as Google Drive, Dropbox or iCloud Drive on a Mac. Cloud storage takes very little time to set up and most work with all types of files.<\/p>\n

You can either upload and copy your folder to one of these, or in some cases; you can set up automatic syncronising.<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/p>\n

3. Keep a versions file of your main manuscript<\/h3>\n

An extra line of protection is to create a new folder and save a timeline of versions of your main manuscript document. Adding a date to the end of the file name helps you keep track.<\/p>\n

You only need to do this once a week perhaps, but it is a perfect backup system if you are methodical, or pedantic like me.<\/p>\n

\"save<\/p>\n

\"file<\/p>\n

You can use any naming system you prefer. As an extra precaution, you can also\u00a0use underscores in file names as in the example\u00a0files above. Filenames without spaces are a little less likely to corrupt, or so I believe.<\/p>\n

Again, save your revision\u00a0files to an external location as an extra backup.<\/p>\n

4. Be systematic as you write your book<\/h3>\n

When you write, use your individual chapter\u00a0files and be sure to copy your new work to your chosen external backup location at the end of your writing session or day.<\/p>\n

On completion of each chapter, do a copy and paste into your main manuscript.<\/p>\n

Then do a \u2018Save As<\/strong><\/em>\u2018 for a new dated revision to your revision folder.<\/p>\n

Using \u2018Save As<\/strong><\/em>\u2018 instead of \u2018Save<\/strong><\/em>\u2018 is the best way to protect your versions as it creates a new file but\u00a0your main manuscript file will remain intact and unchanged.<\/p>\n

If you need to send files to an editor or proofreader, again, do a \u2018save as\u2019 and rename the file to suit and save to another new folder.<\/p>\n

You should never move files, transfer files or share files without creating a new version with \u2018Save As<\/strong><\/em>\u2018.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h3>\n

There is nothing worse for a writer than losing all their work due to a computer problem.<\/p>\n

Taking the time to learn how to be a good file manager with\u00a0File Explorer in Windows or Finder in Mac to protect your work is vital. You don\u2019t need to be as pedantic as I am, but you should definitely review how your manuscript files are saved, protected and backed up.<\/p>\n

At the very least, have copies saved externally. However, setting up a simple system as I have outlined above does not take much time at all.<\/p>\n

By managing your files correctly, you will be secure in the knowledge that whatever goes wrong, your manuscript will always be safe and secure.<\/p>\n

If you have already started writing your manuscript, you can take these precautions by copying out your chapters into new files and start a new revisions file for your manuscript.<\/p>\n

It will only take a half an hour to set up the files and folders to be secure and avoid any possible heartaches in the future when it comes time to publish a book.<\/p>\n

\n

How helpful was this article for you?<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n
\n
You Might Also Like These Articles<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5\/5 (1) How to use a file manager to protect your precious manuscript Don\u2019t trust technology! If you are writing a book, you should never use one working copy of your manuscript file. Computer files can suffer from all sorts Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,209,142,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-436053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essay-paper-writing","category-how-to-articles","category-self-publishing","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}