Large Word file (700 p.) very slow
Ehjeh
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HaryPattel -
HaryPattel -
Hello everyone!
I have my 700-page thesis in a large Word file (17 MB) with many photos and a few tables.
Word is very slow to navigate through it; it repaginates the file every 5 minutes, and when I want to repaginate my Table of Contents, Summary, or Index myself, it takes 1 minute each time.
Moreover, this file apparently takes up a lot of memory, as my laptop gets very hot while I'm working on it.
How can I speed all this up and use less memory? Thank you!
I have my 700-page thesis in a large Word file (17 MB) with many photos and a few tables.
Word is very slow to navigate through it; it repaginates the file every 5 minutes, and when I want to repaginate my Table of Contents, Summary, or Index myself, it takes 1 minute each time.
Moreover, this file apparently takes up a lot of memory, as my laptop gets very hot while I'm working on it.
How can I speed all this up and use less memory? Thank you!
6 réponses
Hello
As a "thésard," I thought you all knew that it is highly recommended to avoid creating large reports in Word and that for scientific theses, a LateX version is far preferable.
Indeed, Word manages large documents very poorly, not to mention the random save crashes in large documents (I was a victim of this twice in two reports).
Maybe it has improved since version 2000?
Furthermore, Word also handles graphical files very poorly if you do a direct copy/paste. It's as if it saves them in bitmap format, a heavy image format. Prefer inserting it through the image insertion menu in a lighter supported format.
My proposal:
Download Open Office, free:
http://fr.openoffice.org/
Then save everything in Open Office format (file/save as). Check that the conversion has been done correctly, which is not necessarily the case, especially for such a large document.
After that, if everything goes well, two options:
1 - abandon Word & continue on Open Office (you shouldn't feel lost)
2 - re-save your thesis version in Open Office --> Word 97/2000 format.
And then you reopen the newly generated document via Word.
If by chance this second solution works, it would be quite amusing to see that Open Office sometimes re-saves its competitor's format better than the proprietary software of that undocumented format.
Keep us posted if this funny situation happens to you.
As a "thésard," I thought you all knew that it is highly recommended to avoid creating large reports in Word and that for scientific theses, a LateX version is far preferable.
Indeed, Word manages large documents very poorly, not to mention the random save crashes in large documents (I was a victim of this twice in two reports).
Maybe it has improved since version 2000?
Furthermore, Word also handles graphical files very poorly if you do a direct copy/paste. It's as if it saves them in bitmap format, a heavy image format. Prefer inserting it through the image insertion menu in a lighter supported format.
My proposal:
Download Open Office, free:
http://fr.openoffice.org/
Then save everything in Open Office format (file/save as). Check that the conversion has been done correctly, which is not necessarily the case, especially for such a large document.
After that, if everything goes well, two options:
1 - abandon Word & continue on Open Office (you shouldn't feel lost)
2 - re-save your thesis version in Open Office --> Word 97/2000 format.
And then you reopen the newly generated document via Word.
If by chance this second solution works, it would be quite amusing to see that Open Office sometimes re-saves its competitor's format better than the proprietary software of that undocumented format.
Keep us posted if this funny situation happens to you.
HaryPattel
Word 10 now handles very large files (more than 15,000 styled pages) very well, allowing for easy corrections and searches without managing dozens of files. Open Office, Libre Office, and LaTeX are far from providing the same services with the same ergonomics. Moreover, they use different codes and keyboard shortcuts, which makes life impossible when one has to think about the substance while writing without being too distracted by technical details. Thank you, Word.
Thank you for the advice.
I saved without any problem using OpenOffice, but it's in English so I don't have the synonym function.
Is there a version in French?
Also, part of my table of contents and summary are no longer hyperlinks but in normal format.
Compared to Word, there seem to be many fewer pre-set formats for font sizes: intro, chapter, sub-chapter, small 1...
I tried LaTeX, I downloaded it but can't open a Word file. It seems quite complicated.
With OpenOffice, it's not lagging anymore but I wonder if I will get used to this menu in English.
However, it's impossible to Save As a Word file, it doesn’t recognize the file and displays hieroglyphs instead.
If I continue, I will need to train on OpenOffice; it doesn't seem that simple, especially since I don't have much time. Regarding the file path, you can definitely feel the difference in any case.
I saved without any problem using OpenOffice, but it's in English so I don't have the synonym function.
Is there a version in French?
Also, part of my table of contents and summary are no longer hyperlinks but in normal format.
Compared to Word, there seem to be many fewer pre-set formats for font sizes: intro, chapter, sub-chapter, small 1...
I tried LaTeX, I downloaded it but can't open a Word file. It seems quite complicated.
With OpenOffice, it's not lagging anymore but I wonder if I will get used to this menu in English.
However, it's impossible to Save As a Word file, it doesn’t recognize the file and displays hieroglyphs instead.
If I continue, I will need to train on OpenOffice; it doesn't seem that simple, especially since I don't have much time. Regarding the file path, you can definitely feel the difference in any case.
In fact, I think I'm going to try to reduce the size of my Word file. For that, I need to decrease the size of all my photos. It's difficult because they are already resized in Word and I don't see how to restore their original size (readjusted 4 years ago in several other Word files).
I'm currently looking at how to reduce these 17 megs :) So if I can get down to 3 or 4 MB, Word won't lag anymore.
If I can't find a solution, I'll remove all my photos to write on my file and will only add them back at the last moment when I've finalized everything.
I'm currently looking at how to reduce these 17 megs :) So if I can get down to 3 or 4 MB, Word won't lag anymore.
If I can't find a solution, I'll remove all my photos to write on my file and will only add them back at the last moment when I've finalized everything.
For OpenOffice in French, follow this link:
openoffice a beautiful free office suite
--
Toco y se gausos !!!
openoffice a beautiful free office suite
--
Toco y se gausos !!!
Yes, I installed it in French. The interface is similar to Word, but I'm struggling to master features like indexing or hyperlinks and some other small things that are slowing me down in my writing.
Otherwise, I removed all my photos from Word, reducing it from 17 MB to 3 MB! However, my laptop is still heating up. I believe that with more than 250 pages, Word consumes a lot of memory.
Otherwise, I removed all my photos from Word, reducing it from 17 MB to 3 MB! However, my laptop is still heating up. I believe that with more than 250 pages, Word consumes a lot of memory.