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Originally Posted by RRB
I guess we all experience these depressing things.
My question here is if there is anything I can do to make a major difference (It seems like on the official MS Discussion sites they have an auto-text for "ChHeck your Office updates" etc. peripheral ideas that simply don't address the real issue.
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Actually, for many people that does address the issue, especially on Mac systems. I recognize that it may not address your issues.
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Anyway:
1. My doc is a little < 500 pages. Only three graphics (one in the header) that I use for separators by bookmarking them and then CR to their "text".
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This is not "little." Ten-twenty pages is "little." Word can handle much larger documents than 500 pages, though. Document structure can make a huge difference.
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2. Hundreds of section breaks that I actually need.
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What are you using the section breaks to do? In a 500-page document, this is an extraordinary number of section breaks. These add a
lot to the complexity of a document file.
When to use Section breaks in Microsoft Word (and when to not use Section Breaks)
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3. Many footnotes and index fields and other CR fields.
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These are three separate issues.
Footnotes can require repagination.
Cross-References, as you know, create bookmarks at the location being cross-referenced, other than a reference to a bookmark.
Index entries should only slow things down when the Index is being regenerated, which is not automatic.
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4. I use a symbol of an installed font at the beginning of citations (there are hundreds of them)
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That you are using a different font for this should not matter.
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5. I have tinkered with all the suggestions regarding setting etc.
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This does a good job of expressing your frustration. It gives someone responding to your question virtually no information about what you have tried, leaving us to guess.
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6. Almost all font formatting is via style and not individually formatted.
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This is a good thing and will speed up your document.
Is the same true of your paragraph formatting?
The Importance of Styles in Microsoft Word
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7. Have disabled all non-essential add-ons
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What happens when you disable
all add-ins?
When you try editing the document in safe mode?
Open Office apps in safe mode on a Windows PC - Microsoft Office
Safe mode is a diagnostic, not a way to routinely use Word.
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Sometime until Word inserts a cross reference I can go get a cup of coffee in the meanwhile.
(The only solution for me to keep sane is by playing motivational lectures in the background, so when Word hangs I just focus on them
I am running on a super fast system with graphical a hardware graphic accelerator.
Is there anything I have not thought of that could make a real difference?
It is interesting to note that there are a few pages where Word especially slows down. Many short footnotes. Why would that be? Is there something there that could be contaminating my file?
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Yes lots of footnotes slows Word down.
This is because Word will always force the footnote to be on the same page as the referencing page and has to repaginate.
Try switching to Endnotes until your final.
You could try turning off background repagination.
You could try working in draft mode.
Did you turn off Grammarly?
Other things that can slow you down:
- Lengthy tables
- Text Boxes