Hi,

Just a quick question regarding everyone's favourite word processor, Word 2010. I recently passed my viva and now I am back onto the corrections. I am attempting (at the moment) to edit the complete thesis document. As was the case when I was submitting, the program randomly freezes and then crashes out.

The file is massive ~80MB, 420 pages, 97,000 complete word count...... I want to avoid having to break the document back into chapters as the editing took ages to do in the end. I therefore wondered if anyone knew of a way of making Word 2010 run more smoothly with enormous files. I have never had to deal with anything of this size before, hence why I am asking.

Thanks!!

Thankfully I have no Word 2010 experience but have a couple of tips from previous versions (IMO they are all basically the same with an ever flashier, more inconvenient, hectoring user interface overlain on the original program. Not that I'm prejudiced or anything :) ).

Simplest: a 'save as' instead of a 'save' will shed the memory of recent changes you made. With a file that size, you no doubt have masses of figures/photos etc. Right click on one to try to get the format picture dialog box, then click on compress and choose a suitable option. You can opt to compress all if you want to live dangerously. That might save quite a bit of memory. Good luck!

Needless to say, make sure you have a back-up first!

Thanks for the advice Pootle. I will give it a go an see how I get on, thanks!

There is always the risk of file corruption when you work with long documents. If you have only minor changes to make -e.g. spelling mistakes - you can amend the PDF by using Adobe Acrobat or Expert PDF 7. I kept my chapters saved in individual word documents that I then turned into individual PDFs and I "stitched" them together at the very end.