If you are typing a Word document, especially one with a lot of math equations and graphics, you may reach a point where Word says it:
"cannot save the document because the disk is full."
You then try to save to a different disc and Word says that THAT disc is also full.
DON'T PANIC!
The problem is not really the disc space needed to store your document.
(I guess that some data structure in Word that either describes equations or diagrams, or even just tracks Word changes, grows exponentially and Word needs too much working memory (RAM or paged) to successfully save the document.)
An easy solution that always works for me is:
1) save your document as mywordoc.rtf
(Rich Text Format) rather than as mywordoc.doc.
You can abandon the mywordoc.doc
file if it has already been saved. (Word will warn you that you may
lose certain formatting properties by using .rtf
instead of .doc format.
I have never seen any such loss of formatting actually happen.)
2) Close and restart Word.
3) Open mywordoc.rtf which you just created.
4) Save it as a *.doc file.
5) For safety, continue your work as a new separate *.doc file, (although I find that the "disk-full" panic is nearly always temporary.)