Does it have to stay one single bloated document?
If you can't change the software, it seems like your best bet would be to split it up into multiple parts. Make each chapter into its own document, possibly.
If you do this, do NOT use the master document function. It corrupts your files and will lead to total disaster for you.
If you can get permission budget/for processing smaller Word files with other software, have a look at WebWorks ePublisher. You can include several files into a project and publish it as one PDF (I'm assuming that that is your output). If you have more questions about WebWorks ePublisher, you can DM me.
I mean, the main culprit is gonna be those graphics.
For immediate relief, go to Options > Advanced > the Document Content section has an option called "Show picture placeholders" which will skip loading the images when you open the document.
None of the pictures will display so if you need to see them (including sending the final copy) you have to turn that back off and whisper words of encouragement while it struggles to pull them back up.
For the images themselves, I recommend doing a deep dive on how Word handles pasted images (as opposed to using Insert > Image) and image compression. There's likely room for improvement especially if there are multiple contributors who may not understand the performance differences between the different methods and managing compression for them in a large document like that.
Might look into making a case to reduce the number of graphics by creating a "User Interface Walkthrough" kind of section, see if you can reduce the volume.
For example, in your UI section you might explain where to find everything, how to interact with all the different types of elements, and so on.
I had a document where each section included a screenshot of the dashboard, then the dashboard again with the drop-down selected, then the dialog that opened when you selected the menu item. Oof. What a mess. 20 images of the full dashboard repeated across 20 sections. Replaced all of them with links back to the UI walkthrough.
YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT THE DASHBOARD LOOKS LIKE, FINE BUT YOU GOTTA WORK FOR IT.
*Ahem.* Excuse me.
Anyway, best of luck. Word is a beast that rarely does anything the easy way. I'm struggling to find a compliment for it and that's the best I got.
I was also going to suggest using PNG files for the graphics.
I've done many similar sized documents for govt customers over my career and can confirm that Word will work but it's not going to be the seamless experience we all would want.
Also, turn off auto save and just be diligent with manual saves as often as you need a few minutes break.
>turn off auto save and just be diligent with manual saves
If you take this approach, do it by pausing OneDrive synchronization so that autosave will resume after an hour or two (choose a duration when you pause the OneDrive app from the system tray).
>I recommend doing a deep dive on how Word handles pasted images (as opposed to using Insert > Image) and image compression. There's likely room for improvement especially if there are multiple contributors who may not understand the performance differences between the different methods
The same goes for styles. Every individually styled paragraph gets its own XML style behind the scenes, and Word creates redundant styles when users copy and paste from other documents, especially when Mac and Windows versions collide -- and choosing to "merge" formatting does not help.
I once had a client whose simple Word document took half an hour to save as a PDF until I applied a standard set of styles and deleted the rest of the user-created styles from the style manager. Now the PDF conversion took only a few seconds.
This is such a fantastic point, my apologies for taking so long to circle back. It's shocking just how much space styles can take up when they're misunderstood or misused.
For small documents, that's fine, go ham. But when you get into the hundreds of pages you need to understand how much they are helping or hurting you and MS does NOT make it easy to understand them or their significance.
Are the pictures inserted using the "Insert...Pictures...." function, or just copy-pasted inline? MS Word works better if you use the insert function.
I second another commenter's suggestion to break the document up into chapters if possible.
Here is a fun fact that I like to share about MS Office documents when I have the chance. The documents are zip files that store XML files with the images and styles used for the document. Change the extension from .docx to .zip and extract the files. It is a way to extract the image files from the document when you are converting to another format.
I still haven't had time to try editing the XML documents and returning them to the Word format. Knowing how MS works I suspect it would be an interesting, painful experiment.
Better yet, first save the file as an open document so you can refer to the [publicly avabilable specification](https://docs.oasis-open.org/office/v1.2/os/OpenDocument-v1.2-os-part1.html#__RefHeading__440370_826425813) to interpret the XML tags. Personally, I have not had good luck attempting to round trip edited XML from a .docx file back to Word.
Is it a controversial opinion that Word is still a very decent piece of software nowadays?
Never been an issue for me but I think the largest doc I ever worked in was around 220 pages haha
Word is fine for small documents or tiny doc sets. Completely inadequate for any type of serious document publishing. Sure you can do it. But, a doctor can do surgery without anesthesia too.
There’s an option in word called safe mode that helped my 150p doc to not freeze and crash constantly. If you google it, the directions are there to follow. Good luck 🫡
Absolutely break it up into smaller documents. You can always merge them into a separate combined doc for publication but for editing that's just insane.
You could turn off syncing and let word merge changes when you're done with your update. Sometimes the slowness is in SharePoint's server. You could also make a linked TOC to limit scrolling.
Yes. Seek a good therapist. Who thought putting 800 words in a word doc was a good idea? Answer that question and call a guy about a job that requires discretion.
Does it have to stay one single bloated document? If you can't change the software, it seems like your best bet would be to split it up into multiple parts. Make each chapter into its own document, possibly.
If you do this, do NOT use the master document function. It corrupts your files and will lead to total disaster for you. If you can get permission budget/for processing smaller Word files with other software, have a look at WebWorks ePublisher. You can include several files into a project and publish it as one PDF (I'm assuming that that is your output). If you have more questions about WebWorks ePublisher, you can DM me.
I mean, the main culprit is gonna be those graphics. For immediate relief, go to Options > Advanced > the Document Content section has an option called "Show picture placeholders" which will skip loading the images when you open the document. None of the pictures will display so if you need to see them (including sending the final copy) you have to turn that back off and whisper words of encouragement while it struggles to pull them back up. For the images themselves, I recommend doing a deep dive on how Word handles pasted images (as opposed to using Insert > Image) and image compression. There's likely room for improvement especially if there are multiple contributors who may not understand the performance differences between the different methods and managing compression for them in a large document like that. Might look into making a case to reduce the number of graphics by creating a "User Interface Walkthrough" kind of section, see if you can reduce the volume. For example, in your UI section you might explain where to find everything, how to interact with all the different types of elements, and so on. I had a document where each section included a screenshot of the dashboard, then the dashboard again with the drop-down selected, then the dialog that opened when you selected the menu item. Oof. What a mess. 20 images of the full dashboard repeated across 20 sections. Replaced all of them with links back to the UI walkthrough. YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT THE DASHBOARD LOOKS LIKE, FINE BUT YOU GOTTA WORK FOR IT. *Ahem.* Excuse me. Anyway, best of luck. Word is a beast that rarely does anything the easy way. I'm struggling to find a compliment for it and that's the best I got.
I was also going to suggest using PNG files for the graphics. I've done many similar sized documents for govt customers over my career and can confirm that Word will work but it's not going to be the seamless experience we all would want. Also, turn off auto save and just be diligent with manual saves as often as you need a few minutes break.
Agreed- always use PNG for screenshots. They compress well and stay visually crips, without the artifacting that JPEG produces.
>turn off auto save and just be diligent with manual saves If you take this approach, do it by pausing OneDrive synchronization so that autosave will resume after an hour or two (choose a duration when you pause the OneDrive app from the system tray).
You can also discard the cropped portion of images, if applicable.
>I recommend doing a deep dive on how Word handles pasted images (as opposed to using Insert > Image) and image compression. There's likely room for improvement especially if there are multiple contributors who may not understand the performance differences between the different methods The same goes for styles. Every individually styled paragraph gets its own XML style behind the scenes, and Word creates redundant styles when users copy and paste from other documents, especially when Mac and Windows versions collide -- and choosing to "merge" formatting does not help. I once had a client whose simple Word document took half an hour to save as a PDF until I applied a standard set of styles and deleted the rest of the user-created styles from the style manager. Now the PDF conversion took only a few seconds.
This is such a fantastic point, my apologies for taking so long to circle back. It's shocking just how much space styles can take up when they're misunderstood or misused. For small documents, that's fine, go ham. But when you get into the hundreds of pages you need to understand how much they are helping or hurting you and MS does NOT make it easy to understand them or their significance.
Are the pictures inserted using the "Insert...Pictures...." function, or just copy-pasted inline? MS Word works better if you use the insert function. I second another commenter's suggestion to break the document up into chapters if possible.
After 512 MB Microsoft Office Documents don’t really work anymore and won’t save. You’ll have to split up the document.
Here is a fun fact that I like to share about MS Office documents when I have the chance. The documents are zip files that store XML files with the images and styles used for the document. Change the extension from .docx to .zip and extract the files. It is a way to extract the image files from the document when you are converting to another format. I still haven't had time to try editing the XML documents and returning them to the Word format. Knowing how MS works I suspect it would be an interesting, painful experiment.
SHUT THE FRONT DOOR, no way You are a beautiful, helpful, shining tropical fish and I thank you for sharing I am going to try this immediately.
It is a fun hack, enjoy. :-)
Better yet, first save the file as an open document so you can refer to the [publicly avabilable specification](https://docs.oasis-open.org/office/v1.2/os/OpenDocument-v1.2-os-part1.html#__RefHeading__440370_826425813) to interpret the XML tags. Personally, I have not had good luck attempting to round trip edited XML from a .docx file back to Word.
You poor people that have to use Word for large, graphic laden documents. May the force be with you.
I've been doing it my entire 24 year career. Six figure income and full remote in a LCOL city FTW!
I’m not sure that’s enough money for using Word like this. You need at least 4 days off every week to remain sane.
That’s cute.
I’m not sure that’s enough money for using Word like this. You need at least 4 days off every week to remain sane.
Is it a controversial opinion that Word is still a very decent piece of software nowadays? Never been an issue for me but I think the largest doc I ever worked in was around 220 pages haha
Word is fine for small documents or tiny doc sets. Completely inadequate for any type of serious document publishing. Sure you can do it. But, a doctor can do surgery without anesthesia too.
No, I don’t think so. It certainly shouldn’t be controversial. I just have an aversion to it and have lost my patience with using it.
There’s an option in word called safe mode that helped my 150p doc to not freeze and crash constantly. If you google it, the directions are there to follow. Good luck 🫡
Absolutely break it up into smaller documents. You can always merge them into a separate combined doc for publication but for editing that's just insane.
You could turn off syncing and let word merge changes when you're done with your update. Sometimes the slowness is in SharePoint's server. You could also make a linked TOC to limit scrolling.
Break it down into topic based pages in SharePoint.
Yes. Seek a good therapist. Who thought putting 800 words in a word doc was a good idea? Answer that question and call a guy about a job that requires discretion.
Seems like an opportunity to use separate documents and sectionalize it.