Speeding Up Document Display

If you routinely work with large, complex documents, and they are a bit sluggish in displaying on the screen, you may be interested in speeding up your display a bit. One way to do this is to use what Word refers to as Draft Fonts. With this option turned on, Word displays text using a single, bold typeface. It also suspends many other features, such as the displaying of graphics and typographic dingbats. (Dingbats are used to display things such as bullets and special characters.)

The Draft Fonts option affects only the display of your document; you can just as easily turn it off if you need to. To turn on the Draft Fonts option in versions of Word prior to Word 2007, follow these steps:

1. Make sure you are viewing your document in either Normal or Outline view.
2. Choose Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
3. Make sure the View tab is selected. (Click here to see a related figure.)
4. Make sure the Draft Font check box is selected.
5. Click on OK.

When using Word 2007, follow these steps, instead:

1. Click the Office button and then click Word Options. Word displays the Word Options dialog box.
2. Click Advanced at the left side of the dialog box.
3. Scroll through the available options until you come to the Show Document Content section. (Click here to see a related figure.)
4. Make sure the Use Draft Font in Draft and Outline Views check box is selected.
5. Click on OK.