Increasing Memory Allocation in All Office Applications

[Julie Nelson]

I like to think I'm not an idiot, but I can't for the life of me, find where I
can increase (change) the memory allocation in Word, Excel, Power
Point, & Entourage. I recently increased my SDRAM and want to
increase my allocations in all the office products. (Maybe I took a
stupid pill today instead of my Centrum!!)

Thanks!

 

[Mickey Stevens]

You can only do this for Classic applications (like Office 2001 and Office
98). It's done by clicking the application icon, and then going to File ->
Get Info -> Memory. You can adjust the Preferred size there, though you
probably should leave the Minimum size alone. You enter the amount in
kilobytes, so 30000k‰30MB, which should be fine if you have a lot of RAM.
For optimum performance, some of the Word MVPs recommend 48000k for Word.

 

[Julie Nelson]

Thanks for your response. I should have been more specific. I'm
running Office X on OS X (on an eMac, GS3 processor), and I've
upgraded to 750mb of SDRAM. I'm going to be running some fairly large
mail merge jobs (color, with a couple of very simple graphics and a
small photo), and test runs have indicated that when I merge to a
document, and then print with my current memory configuration in Word,
the PRINTING really bogs down if I try to print more than 10 - 15
letters at a time (with no other applications runniing on my Mac.)
(If I print a single letter, it takes 30-45 seconds; if I print 15+
letters, it can take up to 3-5 MINUTES to print a SINGLE letter.)
Since I'm going to be running up to 2,000 letters and/or Newsletters
per month, I thought that increasing the memory allocation might help.

Are you saying I can't increase allocations in Office X under OS X?
Is there anything else I should be thinking about to resolve the
printing delays I'm experiencing?

Thanks!

 

[Richard Radke]

You can not increase memory allocations using OSX on any programs. You did
the right thing adding more memory.

The problem you are having is not memory. I would say you have a combination
of things that could slow you down.

Without knowing what the rest of your system is I would say in this order:

#1: Inkjet Printer: If the manufacture claims 12 pages per minute for your
printer, with what you are printing it might print 1-2 pages per minute.

Printers are rated pages per minute with 5% text coverage, no photos and no
graphics.

#2: Not knowing the specs on your eMac I would say Word.

#3: G3 Processor

Overall I would say your printer is about 80% your problem.

What kind of printer do you have?

 

[Jim Gordon]

Hi Julie,

Adding RAM was a good idea, but I think the problem is that your processor
is just not fast enough to keep up with both Word and the Printer driver and
keep everything running at full tilt.

You might be able to test this hypothesis by doing a print run of 30
letters. I suspect the printing speed will pick up after Word finishes doing
the merge. If this is the case, then consider a processor upgrade card.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

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