I am working with Word 2011 for Mac and am having difficulty opening a large file.

I am creating a book that is large because of images. When it was all compiled, it was 700 MB! Word would not open it because of the size - the msg kept coming up that it was larger than 30 MB. According to all research I was able to find, that size figure relates to text only.

The next step I went through was creating 2 files and then merging them. Same thing - file was too large to open.

The files are:

1. 854 KB file of tables and columns of text. The file opens and saves perfectly with no problems.
2. 272.5 MB file that is nothing but images with maybe 75 words as titles in the entire file. The file opens and saves perfectly.

Both files are formatted exactly the same. I then merged the files and the resulting file was 685 MB! Not only can I not figure out why the file is so large but it will not open.

Anybody have any suggestions? I've tried to open the files in other programs (Open Office, Libre) but because of the formatting (columns, tables, and images), they always get distorted or do not display properly.