Is there an optimum document size to make them open faster

[Steve]

I use Word 2003 with XP on a brand new HP laptop. Some of my documents are
quite large. I'm told (in a MVP post) that Word slows down after 2,500 pages
or about 30 mb of text. My documents are only 300 pages or so and the text
(when copied into Notepad to strip out the graphics) only amounts to 500kb.
Now when I open such documents they open instantly but I usually have to
wait 20 seconds or so before the cursor appears.
I have all these document in outline view. I do use hyperlinks and very
simple macros. The CPU usage is down around 15%. I have installed the service
update for Word 2003.
Would I be better off to carve up my documents into smaller files and
hyperlink them?

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hello Steve

I use Word 2003 with XP on a brand new HP laptop.

Brand new sounds good, esp. since this means there's not a whole lot of
applications and processes running. How much RAM have you got?

Some of my documents are
quite large. I'm told (in a MVP post) that Word slows down after 2,500 pages
or about 30 mb of text. My documents are only 300 pages or so and the text
(when copied into Notepad to strip out the graphics) only amounts to 500kb.
Now when I open such documents they open instantly but I usually have to
wait 20 seconds or so before the cursor appears.

Any activity shown in the status bar? Nowadays, a lot of time is taken
to scan the file for viruses (but then, the file is not open yet). It
will also take some time for Word to paginate your document (it does
this on-the-fly, i.e., every time).

I have all these document in outline view. I do use hyperlinks and very
simple macros. The CPU usage is down around 15%. I have installed the service
update for Word 2003.
Would I be better off to carve up my documents into smaller files and
hyperlink them?

On a "fit" installation (CPU and esp. RAM), 300 pages should really be
fine. If you save as a TXT file with 0.5 MByte size, you should really
look into

- the graphics: in what form have you inserted these? Objects
("expensive" in terms of size),
- very large tables (can slow Word down a lot)?
- complex layouts (columns, shapes with text flowing around them, etc.)?
- fast saves [Tools | Options | Save] is off?
- no versions are saved within the same file?
- Track Changes is off?

HTH
Robert