With older computers, and older versions of Word, I sometimes had trouble with large documents - especially if they had several images. I think that you can reduce problems in this case - putting each chapter in its own sub-document, for example.

On the other hand, with today's computers, the document would have to be really large to justify the additional complexity - unless you have already run into the problems.

Note: The usual problem was that Word was not able to save a document with a full save, as opposed to a fast save. Even if "fast save" is enabled, Word does a full save every 16th. time (checked this years ago with an older version; now I never use fast save), to save space.

We can imagine that as long as you work with a subdocument, you save Word the trouble of gradually loading the entire document.

For printing, or for generating the TOC, you would work with the master document; in most other cases, you can work on the subdocuments. But I think this isn't worth-while under normal circumstances.

>Hi,
>
>I'm working on a Word document and am worried about the size...and wondering if there is any benefit to breaking it up in to Master and Sub-documents (for a single user).
>
>I've played around w/Master and sub-documents a bit, and have read a bit about them on the net, and it seems that they might have some problems.
>
>I'm have 1GB Ram, and am also running Dragon NaturallySpeaking to dictate part of the document.
>
>Any input is appreciated. Thanks...j