We use Microsoft Word to create technical procedures. Currently we are working long distant with trainers at our plants to delete content and finding that the documents are freezing when attempting to edit. There are no items being changed that show up in Track Changes. Thank you.

How are you sharing documents?

We are sharing documents through SharePoint. Each one of us edit using the desktop app.

Where are your servers?
Connection speed issues?

Any problems with other applications?

I am asking these questions not because I have any clue as to what is really happening but to try to gather information for someone else who may be able to use that information to help you.

Is this a problem with one document or all documents or something in between?

You may want to review How to Troubleshoot Problems that Occur When You Start Word
How to troubleshoot problems that occur when you start or use Word - Office | Microsoft Docs

Does it happen if you open Word in Safe mode?
Open Office apps in safe mode on a Windows PC - Microsoft Office

Safe mode is not a way to regularly use Word, but it is a valuable diagnostic step. If your problem goes away when you use Safe mode, we can walk you through other steps that may help eliminate the problem. Please write back.

I believe that this is happening with several similar files. Thank you for the links. We are looking into saving the documents under another name and trying to compress more of the photos.

I use and administer Sharepoint sites and often work remotely so I think I have have good understanding of how it all works. Your initial post title says Word is freezing when you open the file but in the body of the post you say the freezing happens when you edit the file. These are two very different things.

If the problem is when you are opening the file, the most likely cause is network download speed. When you attempt to access a file from Sharepoint, the file is downloading from the server to sit on your hard drive where it can be opened and edited. Downloads can be sped up by minimising the file sizes or getting a faster internet connection. Super slow opening speeds can also be caused by templates not being on local drives. Where are the templates (attached template and addins) located? Are they on the users hard drives?

If the problem is freezing after the file is open when you are actually editing the file then the cause becomes harder to work out. Revision Tracking can be a big factor in causing editing bottlenecks but you mentioned this wasn't happening. So I would examine some other things to work out where the issue could be coming from.

Do your problem documents contain links to other files?
Are there macros being used in documents and/or templates?

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Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

Good Afternoon. I am not sure if the documents are freezing upon opening but they are freezing during editing. We do not use any macros on these documents.

Charles provided a link for starting in Safe Mode. Try opening one of the problem documents after downloading a copy from Sharepoint. Then open Word in Safe Mode and use File > Open to open that downloaded file. If you can make edits without a freeze you will have a clue as to where the problem is coming from.

Post back with your results from testing with Safe Mode and we can provide some steps for disabling templates to figure out where your problem is coming from. Most of those steps are described in Charles' first link.

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Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia