What is the maximum practical length of a Word document?

[Guest]

I know, you'll say there is none, but isn't there a practical limit?

Working on a software documentation manual in Word.

Thanks!

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Some users have reported working with more than 10,000 pages of text. The
practical limit is not on length or even file size but complexity. Graphics
(especially embedded ones) add a tremendous load, and tables add complexity,
as do section breaks, fields, etc. In dealing with larger files, the
greatest asset is more RAM (not that a faster processor or larger HD hurt,
either), and a good video driver is required for any use of Word, not just
long/complex documents.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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[Charles Kenyon]

To follow up on what Suzanne said, reduce complexity. One way to do this is
by religious use of styles. See
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart2.htm for a
solid manual template and instructions.
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
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[mp-l]

I know, you'll say there is none, but isn't there a practical limit?

Working on a software documentation manual in Word.

Thanks!

 

[Yves Dhondt]

Word 2007 documents (docx) are nothing more than zip files. So the same
limitations should apply. If I'm not mistaken, the limitations for zip
archives are:
- a maximum file size of 4GB
- a maximum of 65536 files in a single archive (that would be around 65500
images, custom xml, ...)

Of course, Microsoft Word, and any other editor out there, will probably ran
out of memory, become really slow, or crash long before those limits are
reached.

Yves