If the problem is evident in all documents on your computer (they are all slow in opening), then you may want to check your virus protection software. If you suspect this problem, you will need to chat with your network administrator to see what can be done. Thus, if opening remote documents is slow in all of your programs, then you should check your network and the other computer. This type of slowdown should affect other programs on your computer, however, when you need to access remote data from those programs. Sometimes, if the network is configured improperly, communication across the network can slow to a crawl. If the document is on a different computer in your network, then the problem could be either the other computer or even the network itself. The first thing to check is whether the document is on your computer or not.
This is where a little bit of detective work comes into play. In these instances, the reason for the slowness may not be immediately evident. There are other times, however, when opening a document can be downright painful-for instance, when it takes four minutes (or longer) to open a document that is only 800 KB in size. For instance, if the document is quite large, or if it contains a lot of complex graphics, if it contains a lot of linked data from other sources, or if you have saved it quite often with Word's Fast Save feature turned on. There are times when opening a document in Word can be slow.