Slow loading of images when MacWord loads files from HTML page

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Andrew Wigmore - 13 Jul 2006 11:54 GMT

Hello there

I have written a web applicaiton that includes an "export to word" function
whereby the the web page is opened in word (or Excel) via the mime type of
the returned web page. The web page includes standard HTML elements
including an image tag - this same image is repeated up to 50 times within
the same document and therefore relies on Word interpretting the HTML page
correctly. The application is intranet based on a fast (100mbs) network.

I am having a strange problem where by the image elements of the documents
take an extremely long time to load when displayed in Mac:Word or Excel (up
to 30 mins for 50 images all of which are the same) - the images are loaded
in batches of 5-10 at a time with a long wait inbetween. The image load
never actually fails but is consistently very time consuming on multiple
machines. When the images are loading a image place holder is displayed
consistenting of a red, green and blue sphere, box and triangle - it is not
the broken image icon. Loading the same web page on a Windows based machine
with Word or Excel results in all the images being loaded almost
instantaneously. Given this, I was wondering if was something to do with a
browser caching setting and I have tested those that seem relevant but no
luck as of yet although I was exactly sure whicfh settings would affect
MacOffice behaviour - I assumed the machines Internet Explorer instance.

Has anyone else seen this behaviour before or have any clues as to which
settings would be a good idea to take a look at?

The configuration is: MacOS X with Word 2004 (versiuon 11.2, 060202).

Regards
Andrew

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Jim Gordon - 15 Jul 2006 14:52 GMT

Hi Andrew,

If I understand your dilemma, the images are located on somewhere on the
network rather than being contained in the document and it takes a very
long time for the images to appear.

Unfortunately, that is the behavior of Mac office. One or two pictures
will load reasonably quickly, but once you get past a handful it seems
to take forever. There is certainly room for improvement of this feature
across the board in Mac office.

It would be a good idea for you to alert Microsoft to this problem via
the feedback mechanism in Office. (Help > Send Feedback) It's likely
that MacBU does not realize how this feature is being (or at least
trying to be used).

You don't mention how the pictures are put into the Word document in the
first place. Are you using Insert > Field Code?

Since the pictures are the same, it might be faster (but a lot more
complicated) if you bring just one picture then use a macro to copy it
and then paste it elsewhere in the document. No guarantees, either.

If you can get the resolution of the picture and/or the file size
reduced that might speed things up.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

> Hello there
>
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
> Regards
> Andrew

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Andrew Wigmore - 19 Jul 2006 12:34 GMT

Thanks for your comments Jim

The whole document is actually HTML and so the pictures are inserted using
standard web resource techniques (eg http/server/images/myimg.gif) and then
Mac:word is taking the HTML and rendering it as a document. It certainly
seems like a Mac:Office limitation so I'll log it with Microsoft.

Thanks again!
Andrew

> Hi Andrew,
>
[quoted text clipped - 57 lines]
>> Regards
>> Andrew

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Mac Forum / Applications / MS Office / July 2006

Slow loading of images when MacWord loads files from HTML page