maximum file size capable of fitting onto a 700MB ISO CD-RW

I'm making a TrueCrypt volume and want it to fit the entire available space on a 700MB, ISO formatted, CD-RW disc without overburning.

Solution 1:

You need to check how many free blocks are there on particular media. Then you make ISO of respective size.

cdrecord dev=/dev/sr0 -atip
...
ATIP info from disk:
...
  ATIP start of lead in:  -11077 (97:34/23)
  ATIP start of lead out: 359849 (79:59/74)
...
Manufacturer: Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation

My CD-RW has 359849 2k-sized blocks totalling 736,970,752 of data 32k+32k+3x2k will be used for ISO9660 service information. If you add joliet rockridge and hfs naming extensions it will be even more space wasted.

the "standard" limitation is for 640MB disks with many older drives not reading bigger disks, for 700MB it is more flexible.

In theory there is a lead-out are of size of lead-in after the end of programmable area which can be written with data fully and safely, but CD readers will be more likely to reject drive which does not have proper "session end" and lead-out marks.