But then I have a dual 1.25 GHz G4. I didn’t get your Mac model. Is it a G4/700? That sounds like plenty enough power to me, especially with so much RAM.

I don’t use the “Office Clipboard” at all, though. Only the regular clipboard.

What you WILL get all the time with Word, no matter how fast your Mac is, is those annoying STALLS.

http://www.betalogue.com/index.php?p=39

Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about those AFAIK.

Even MVPs are saying (in private only) that Word X is not suitable for “professional” use. I am not quite sure I agree with this, as I consider myself a professional and I certain use Word X for my work all the time (mostly because I have no choice). But I certainly make sure that I avoid situations that are known to cause problems.

Working on large documents is one of those situations. I think that, by working on a 2.8 MB document, you are asking for trouble. Word is simply not reliable on such large documents. I suspect that the document is that large because you placed pictures in it. This is something that I try to avoid unless I really have to.

If absolutely necessary, I would leave placing the pictures for the very end, and work with a document that only contains text and tables until then.

Also, make sure to keep multiple daily backups of your document. Document corruption can strike at any point, especially when working the same large document for very long.

I like your blog even if you do support Arsenal. (Why???)

Try the following: open your document, save it as a RTF file under a new name, open the RTF file and save it as a DOC file under a new name. Then check the file size, and see if it’s any better.

Also, make sure the “Fast Saves” option is OFF.

As for Arsenal, well, I like the way they play. And I am French. As a matter of fact, I’m from Alsace, the same region as Arsene Wenger :). You gotta admit that players such as Henry are classy and very pleasant to watch.

I still feel that 2.4 MB for a document with no pictures is not normal. As I said, I suggest that you make sure you have many backups updated daily.

Did you try moving the document to Word 97 in Windows, saving it in Windows under a new name and then moving it back to the Mac? I’d be curious to know the results…

In all likelihood, however, you are already working on a corrupted document. One trick you can try is select the entire document minus the VERY LAST paragraph mark in the document, and copy and paste that selection into a new document and save that. You might lose a few page formatting settings (margins, etc.) for the last few pages, but it might be worth a try, since corruption often happens in the document layout information, which is stored “in” that last paragraph mark.