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. 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".

2. Hundreds of section breaks that I actually need.

3. Many footnotes and index fields and other CR fields.

4. I use a symbol of an installed font at the beginning of citations (there are hundreds of them)

5. I have tinkered with all the suggestions regarding setting etc.

6. Almost all font formatting is via style and not individually formatted.

7. Have disabled all non-essential add-ons

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?

Attached Images

Screenshot_243.jpg (113.8 KB, 13 views)

Actually, for many people that does address the issue, especially on Mac systems. I recognize that it may not address your issues.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.
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)
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.
That you are using a different font for this should not matter.
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.
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
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.

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

Indeed, working with large documents in Microsoft Word can be a challenging task.
If possible, divide your document into smaller parts, such as chapters or sections. This will help reduce the load on Word and improve performance.
Make sure all images in your document are optimized for printing and are of a reasonable size. Large images can significantly slow down Word.

Editing images in Word will bloat files. I don't know what it does to speed.

First tof all I want to thank everybody for the attention and assistance.

Let me comment about what was written and maybe I am mistaken about some things:

1.
>>This is not "little." Ten-twenty pages is "little.

My sentence was meant to be read "My doc is a little < 500 pages" as "is a little **less than** 500 pages" using the < operator in place of the words "less than". By now it is over 500 pages.

2.

>>What are you using the section breaks to do?

The book is divided up into many chapters (about 100) which at its beginning has a section break. chapters to start on odd pages and differ in their heading. So I thought this is the natural way to do that.

3.

>>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.

I meant turning off spelling correction in real-time and other settings in options that are supposed to speed things up. But did not work for me.

4.

>>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.

This gets the award. I ran Word in safe mode and also switched to draft view and while everything looks ugly it is working at fast speed. Is there anything I should be "careful about" when using OWrd in the mode?

So in the lack of a more elegant solution, I will stick with this for the meanwhile..

Thank again

SF

This is a good reason to be using them.
It does, though, add to the complexity of the file.

If the only reason is the odd-page break, you could use a variant of the field that adds a page break when at the end of an odd-page. Its purpose is to create a real page before an odd-page break so that it can have a header/footer.
See: Is there an automatic way to create a non-blank, even-numbered page at the end of a chapter, if the chapter would otherwise end on an odd page? by John McGhie, MVP.

Hi Susan,
That working in safe mode speeds things up is a diagonostic indicator. It helps us figure out where the problem is.

Safe mode:

1. Turns off all Add-Ins.
2. Works from Word's defaults rather than any settings in your normal.dotm.
3. Except in an emergency, is not a way to use Word to get work done.

Try renaming your Normal.dotm and see if doing that gives you the benefit of safe mode. If it does, write back. Where is the Normal Template / How to Find the Normal Template.


If it does not, the problem is one or more Add-Ins. You need to disable them all. Then enable them, one at a time, to find out the source of the problem.

Using Draft view is the classic way of speeding up Word. Yes, it takes some getting used to. I seldom use it.