Microsoft Word is probably the most used program in the world and, although theoretically it is a paid program, in one way or another it is installed on all computers. When using Word to write a document or letter of any kind, you may notice some slowdown of the program, especially on older and less powerful computers.
There are several reasons why Word can slow down its loading and therefore the work of writing and in this article we see how to optimize Word by disabling those options that are not necessary and that I almost never need.
An example of Word slowdown occurs when writing a longer document, when the computer appears to hang for a few seconds, especially in auto save.
The advice is to quickly check what is contained in this guide and adjust the various options to get better performance only if you feel "heavy".
READ ALSO: Word settings to be modified to save time
1) Turn off background repagination
The backgound repagination option allows Word to repaginate the document when the program is idle so page numbers are updated.
This can slow down other operations in Word.
To disable this feature, you must first be sure that Word is not in Print Layout view.
Then go to the View tab and put on Draft .
Now you can access Word options and then to advanced settings by scrolling the list below, to the " general " section and disable background repagination by removing the cross.
To access Word Options in Word 2010 click on the File tab and then on Options on the left; in Word 2007 you must instead click the Office button and then the Word Options button is located in the lower row at the bottom of the menu.
Click OK to save your changes and close the window.
2) Disable any additional components installed in Word.
Microsoft Word has additional features included in the program, activated by default, which are almost never used.
These add-ons can slow Word down and make it more difficult to use.
Open the Word options window again and then to the advanced settings as seen in point 1.
The list of add-ons is a bit confusing but their names are written in Italian so just take note of the ones you want to disable.
Below, use the drop-down menu at the bottom, where " Manage " is written and select the various types one by one by deactivating the related additional components (such as Smart Tags).
For each add-on there is a different window of options and to disable it just remove the check mark when you find the item that begins with " enable ... ".
Also remove the hidden personal data found in Word 2007 by pressing the Office button -> Prepare -> Check document while in Word 2010 you have to go to the File - Information menu.
Proceed with the check and remove the hidden information.
3) An important thing to optimize Word is to optimize the images inserted in a document .
In fact, if you work with images that are too heavy and large, in addition to not having any graphic benefit, you end up saving a large file that is difficult to share and send via email.
In Word, select an image and from the top menu press the Compress images button.
Leave blank where it says " Apply only to selected images " and compress all the images of the document so as to make the document lighter both in terms of MB and on the computer memory.
4) Other options to disable in Word
Individually these settings do not give any improvement but all together can greatly lighten the program.
Then go to the Options -> Advanced Settings menu and turn off the text animation found in the " Viewing document content " section.
Text animation allows you to format the text in the document using the effects available in Word.
You can temporarily disable this feature and check if everything is all right.
Also, on the Advanced screen, there is an option in the General section called " Associate animation with events " that allows you to send feedback to Word developers in the form of animation.
If you don't care about sending feedback, as I think, disable this option.
During the insertion of shapes it is possible to notice the appearance of a drawing area that helps the user in the creation.
If you insert simple shapes, one at a time, the drawing area may not be necessary therefore, always in the Advanced Settings screen, in the Editing Options section, deactivate the " Automatically create drawing area when inserting Shapes " item
Another option on the Advanced screen (in the Print section) is that of Background Printing which allows you to continue working while the document is being printed.
With today's computer speed this option is obsolete and can be turned off.
Changing the menu, always from the options window, go to Correction options and, if it is considered superfluous (to many it is useful), disable the spelling and grammar check while typing .
This function is useful but very often, in addition to wasting memory, it also does a job that is not too precise so those who can write and know that the grammar check will still be manual, can disable it.
It is always possible, of course, to check the spelling and grammar for the entire document with the related Word button, here only the real-time check is disabled.
Word has the ability to automatically format text in different ways as you type but for some it can be very annoying.
To optimize Word then you can disable the automatic formatting options .
From the options, go to the correction tools, then press the AutoCorrect options key, go to the Format tab . Auto. while typing and disable the items of the elements of which you do not want automatisms: including tables, numbered lists, bulleted lists.
5) When you write, clicking on the Font drop-down menu (where Times new Roman, Calibri, Verdana, Arial etc. is written, you will see a long list of usable fonts including many useless ones.
These fonts take up memory on the computer and can be removed or permanently deleted with the procedure indicated in the article Download and install Fonts on Windows and writing fonts
Word should now respond faster to commands.
It is clear that if the lack of a desired functionality is discovered, they can be reactivated at any time, following the same path indicated for deactivations.
In another post, I remember the guide for the key combinations for Word 2007 and 2010 and to customize the menu bar .
