# [SOLVED] Problems with a too big Word document



## Royo (Dec 15, 2007)

Hello

I have a problem with a Word document which has after the last time I saved it, apparantly become too big for my computer to handle. There are a lot of graphics in the document, and whenever I try to view it, it will give me "insufficient memory" messages and stop displaying graphics. It also prevents me from editing the document, as I can't save it anymore due to "insufficient memory", meaning that I don't really know what to do. I can't properly view my document, and I can't edit it while it's open either, preventing me from reducing the size of it in the traditional way.

Does anyone know a way of reducing the size of a Word document without actually having to open it first? This issue has no effect on smaller Word documents, unless they are open at the same time as the big one, in which case the insufficient memory will prevent me from working on any of them.


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## quizme1220 (Sep 21, 2004)

*Re: Problems with a too big Word document*

Hello Royo and Welcome to TSF. This post would probably be best answered in the Microsoft Office Support forum. This section is for XP support. I wish I could help.


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## Guest (Dec 16, 2007)

*Re: Problems with a too big Word document*

@QuizMe + Royo: I will have this thread moved over to the Office Forum, right now :smile:


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## koala (Mar 27, 2005)

*Re: Problems with a too big Word document*

How much RAM do you have installed, and what is your swap file setting?

Do you have other programs running at the same time as Word?

It's probably the graphics that are making the files so big. What file format are the images? Try converting them to jpeg if they're not already, and set the compression level to about 60-70% to keep the quality looking good while reducing the filesize.


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## Royo (Dec 15, 2007)

*Re: Problems with a too big Word document*

Thanks for the quick responses (and sorry for posting in the wrong place)

I have 1 GB of RAM, so it's a pretty big document. I have tried running it immediately after rebooting, and without opening other applications, but I still have the same problems.

The graphics are almost entirely in jpg. I don't know about compressing them. I can't at the moment alter any of the graphics in the document, and I've tried deleting a lot of them, but Word will still refuse to save the changes.

I'm afraid that I don't really know what the swap file settings are(as I've only heard about them recently and don't really know what they do), but I can look into it.


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## koala (Mar 27, 2005)

*Re: Problems with a too big Word document*

The swap file (or virtual memory) is like RAM, but it uses the hard drive instead of the RAM chips, meaning it is slower. 1gb should be enough, but some programs will use the swap file even when there is already enough RAM, so it might be worth increasing its size to see if it helps.

Go to Start > Control Panel > Advanced tab > Performance Settings button > Advanced tab > Virtual Memory Change button. Click 'Custom Size' and set Initial and Max to 4096. Click the Set button. OK out of these Windows. Reboot and try Word again. Do you get the same error message?


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## Royo (Dec 15, 2007)

*Re: Problems with a too big Word document*

Thanks. I've found the swap file and it's 1536 Initial and 3072 Max, though for some reason it won't seem to accept any changes I try to make. When I click OK it doesn't accept the changes, but just continues to display the current size. Seems like I'm having more problems than just the swap file.


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## koala (Mar 27, 2005)

*Re: Problems with a too big Word document*

Did you click the Set button and reboot?

Try the freeware *Open Office* to see if it can open the document, then edit and resave. It can open and save in the MS Word format, so once it's reduced you can go back to Word.

If you can get access to the jpegs, *IrfanView* will compress and resave them.


> *http://www.irfanview.com/faq.htm*
> Q: How to reduce saved file size from XX to YY KB?
> A: There is no one-click solution for that, sorry.
> 1. Open an image.
> ...


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## Royo (Dec 15, 2007)

*Re: Problems with a too big Word document*

Okay, I got the swap file changed. It was just me not knowing exatly what to do before. Unfortunately I still get the error message after I've changed the swap file and reboted my computer.

I'll try OpenOffice now and see how it works.


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## Glaswegian (Sep 16, 2005)

*Re: Problems with a too big Word document*

Also have a look here

http://www.officearticles.com/word/recover_a_corrupt_microsoft_word_document.htm


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## Royo (Dec 15, 2007)

*Re: Problems with a too big Word document*

It's taken me a while to get around to follow up on this.

I have fixed the document with help from the link posted above by Glaswegian. I tried the _Open and Repair _option, and then it reported a number of errors in the document which were fixed, and then everything was working fine again. 
I have no idea what those errors were or how they appeared, but I'm just happy that I it fixed my problem.

Thanks for all the help. It saved me from having to redo all the work I have put into that document. ray:


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## koala (Mar 27, 2005)

*Re: Problems with a too big Word document*

Thanks for posting back with your solution. It might help others with the same problem.


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