Zoom @ 10% in large docs too slow in Wd 2003

[Guest]

I've just installed Word 2003, after using Word 2000 for six years. I have
several long documents (book manuscripts, between 200-300 pages each) for
which I use the 10% zoom when I want to check page breaks before chapters,
etc. This has always worked great in Word 2000. In Word 2003 the process of
drawing the document onscreen at 10% zoom has become intolerably slow. The
pages popped onto the screen in Wd 2000, and I could move the cursor from
page to page quite easily when I wanted to pick a page to blow up to 100% for
a closer look. Now moving the cursor to a page causes the entire screen to
redraw, and sometimes the cursor won't move at all. The whole procedure is
now so slow it is almost useless.

Is this because Word 20003 is keeping such closer track of style change? If
I do a paragraph in Italics, for instance, the style in the toolbar changes
to "Normal + Italics," where Word 2000 would simply report "Normal." Since I
do quite a bit of formatting, this is a big load. One document, with quite a
few graphics, also takes forever to save, whereas it used to save quickly and
easily.

I found that unchecking "show background colors and images" speeding things
up considerably, but not enough to solve the problem. Does anyone have other
suggestions? I'm glad to have all the fancy formatting options, but I'm not
sure they're worth the loss in speed when I'm editing.

 

[Guest]

Later note: I should have stated that this occurs in Print view. Also,
sometimes when the pages are drawing, the program switches suddenly to
another document that is loaded.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Hard to say what your particular problem is caused by, but are you using the
print preview (which should be quicker) or print layout?
Uncheck tools > options > edit > keep track of formatting.
Use styles rather than manual formatting.
Why are you using background colours (surely not for pages)? If this is a
book for printing, coloured paper is a much more sensible option. Background
page colours are really intended for web pages.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

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[Guest]

Graham, I wasn't using background colors. I merely meant to say that I had
that unchecked, so it shouldn't be slowing things down. Also, I do use styles
rather than manual formatting. Actually, I thought it was the styles slowing
things down.

Unchecking "keep track of formatting" did the trick.

Also, I was unaware of the improvements in print preview. In Word 2000 that
would only go up to eight pages, and I hadn't bothered checking for any
changes in that feature. I see the preview in 2003 has the full zoom range,
and you're right, it works faster, much faster.

So both your suggestions were spot on. Many thanks.

 

[Graham Mayor]

You are welcome

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

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