Hi, I'm new to this forum - hope some one can help.

I've recently noticed that my Microsoft Word (Office 97) is very slow to "insert images from file" onto the page. It used to take about 3 or 4 seconds to load an image but it now takes up to 30 seconds to load a 1MB jpeg photograph. Even moving the image about on the page takes ages. It has never been this slow before. I'm wondering if it's Word itself that's at fault, as I've no problems using other programs (eg Paint Shop Pro). As I use Word quite a lot for printing groups of photos I'd be very grateful for any help in resolving this matter. Thanks.

I have a Pentium II 400Mhz, 384MB RAM, with over one GB free hard disk space.

Geoff.

Try this link to see if anything helps.
http://wordtips.vitalnews.com/Pages/...Documents.html
Also whats ur HD capacity?1GB free of how much? if ur disk is running out of space or u havent cleaned up the junk/ files associated with the application are fragmented also, you may experience the lag. Run a disk clean up and defrag anyways.

Many thanks for the speedy reply Rusty. I've been to the link you suggested and although very interesting it doesn't really address my particular problem. Documents, old and new, open more or less instantly in Word on my computer. The slowness I experience concerns the loading of a picture (eg. jpeg) onto an already open blank document - using either the "Insert" menu or the "Insert Picture" shortcut button. The 30 to 45 second wait to see the picture pop up on the screen is just a recent problem on my computer.

I'm running Windows XP Home Edition, Pentium II 400Mhz, 384MB RAM, with more than 1GB free disk space on a 9.5GB total capacity HD.

My computer is now 7 years old. Could my hard drive be wearing out? I've recently defragged my drive and although I've done a virus scan on it could I still have picked up a virus that affects the operation of Word?

BTW, I've just noticed that Microsoft Excel is also painfully slow to open a photo. Maybe it's a fault with the whole Microsoft Office (97) package?

Geoff.

Have you scanned for spyware? Am lost as to what the problem cud be although its a gud idea to get a larger drive and more RAM to speed up things. Gud luck

Thanks for getting back to me Rusty. I'm starting to wonder if this slowing down of Word had anything to do with my installing Windows XP about 8 months ago. I haven't been using Word much for printing photos during that time - house renovations took priority - but I was able to print the odd photo using Paint Shop Pro. However, I had the idea to re-install Microsoft Publisher 97, and although it's getting on a bit I've found that it works great for my purposes! Much faster than Word 97.

So, although I can't tell for sure what really caused my Word program to slow down when loading photos, at least I've found a solution to printing batches of photos again.

Yes, I intend to buy a decent computer sometime, with enough power and disk space to edit videos. Sounds like a recipe for an even bigger headache!!

Geoff.