Your CPU is not an issue, your hard drive and video system is because of the file sizes Publisher creates.
Look I have done a lot of book in Publisher, but would never ever consider going over 84 pages ABSOLUTE maximum.
With a 175 pages, and linked photographs the files sizes would be *CONSIDERABLY* over 1Gb and completely unmanageable.
Publisher has a *MAJOR* flaw (read bug) that if you link a picture and delete it, it leave the picture contents behind in the file.
If you link a picture to Publisher, it embeds a full size image in the Publisher file, so consequently, the linking does not save the file bloat.
Having a full version of Acrobat, could allow you to do it in sections and put the sections together in Acrobat, but this is not possible in paginated form. Your printer would have a mental if you arrived with a PDF file not paginated.
For a book that size, with that many pictures, I would suggest you spend the few dollars and buy Serif Page Plus.
Many of us here use both Publisher and PagePlus, as each program has its strengths and weaknesses.
However, for a document of your type and size, there is no way I could recommend Publisher. In saying that, I am not saying Publisher is not a good program, it is, and for some jobs prefer it to PagePlus. However, PagePlus will eat a book that size before breakfast. In Serif if you link a picture, it does not take any of the picture file into the PagePlus file in any way. Microsoft had the opportunity to fix this in Publisher 2003 but failed to do so. We had genuine linking of pictures in Publisher 2.0 but Microsoft have removed many excellent features from versions along the way and have paid the price for their bizarre strange decisions.
Serifs has forums for product assistance here:
http://www.serif.com/forum/default.asp
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