Size Limit for Documents

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 18, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


1

Tyler has a document that contains quite a bit of information, and he keeps adding to it regularly. The document is now over 4,000 pages in length. The length has concerned him a bit, so he thought about breaking it up into subdocuments. However, doing so concerns Tyler, as he's read all sorts of horror stories about working with subdocuments. He wonders if there is a limit on how large his document can get before he starts having problems crop up.

The answer depends on the complexity of the documents you are using, and page count isn't a "big deal" when it comes to complexity. The official decree from Microsoft is that documents have a size limit if 32MB for the text content:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/211489

Note, as well, that the size limit for documents containing all content (such as graphics, embedded content, etc.) is 512 MB. Once a document is loaded into your system, Word also requires additional file storage space on your hard drive for the use of temporary files. (For this reason you'll want to make sure that wherever you are saving your document has plenty of free storage space.)

Of course, you may start seeing poor performance with large documents depending on other factors, such as the amount of memory in your system, how complex the document is, whether it is stored on a network or not, etc. Each document is going to be rather unique in this regard.

It is a good idea to pay attention to things like load time and save time. In other words, how long does it take to load and save your document? If you notice that these are getting longer and longer, you may want to consider breaking up your document into smaller logical units, such as chapters or sections. Put each chapter or section in its own file, and then work with those individual files.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (732) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Getting Rid of Leading Zeros in a Number Format

Excel, by default, displays numbers with a leading zero, if they are less than 1. Here's how you can get rid of those ...

Discover More

When Replace Doesn't Work

Find and Replace is a great tool, but what are you to do if your find or replace doesn't work as you expect? This tip ...

Discover More

Replacing Highlighted Words

The Find and Replace capabilities of Word are quite powerful. Knowing how to find and replace highlighted text can be a ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2021 or Microsoft 365. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word Step by Step today!

More WordTips (menu)

An Automatic File Name

Do you have a set "standard" for how you name new documents? If so, you may be interested in implementing the technique ...

Discover More

Extra Document File Being Saved

You may be surprised sometime to save a document and find out that Word actually saves what appear to be two copies of ...

Discover More

Last Document Saves Not Saved

Click the Save button and you expect your document to be saved, right? What if you later discover it wasn't really saved? ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 6 - 3?

2017-01-09 20:59:38

Wasim Akram

Can I send email of about 450 pages of MS word at one time whole document



This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.