On Sun, 20 Dec 2020 20:05:57 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:

My genealogy program will create a very large file for Word that I
have been saving as a PDF for distribution at the family reunion each
year. The file is currently over 3000 pages. If I try to do any
editing in Word, it takes forever. Is there any way to change hardware
or add something to make this work reasonalby fast? I currently have
Word in my C Drive which is a Samsung 500 GB SSD. I plan on replacing
it with a Samsung 1 TB nvme. The genealogy program runs on the C drive
also, but the data is on a HDD. When I add the nvme, should I put the
data on the nvme, or would it be better to put it on the repurposed
500 GB SSD, or does it make any difference?
TIA for any suggestions.

Not sure why you need to export the data from your genealolgy program to
Word (.doc, .docx) format to edit it. Seems you need better geneaology
software with more robust editing options for commenting on each node
(person).

Actually, I don't export to a word file because it goes so slow,
however, I'd "like" to be able to do that because I'd like to tweak
the file to include things that the genealogy program doesn't have.
The genealogy program is RM 7, and the file is a "Book" consisting of
primarily an output from the program of a narative descendant report,
with an index, TOC, etc. I'd like to add a Word document of a timeline
that I have, but the program doesn't allow that. I've successfully
used the export to a Word file for a smaller "Book" consisting of only
the first 4 generations of the same descendant report. Then edited the
file in Word by adding the timeline as another chapter of the book,
and re-indexing in Word to amke everything work together. Makes for a
nice book only 200 or so pages.

When documents get huge, yep, Word will get slow. The premise is that
if you are going to use a word processor for a huge project, you break
it up into smaller sections, and use a master document to link them
together. When I first starting working in a QA group in a mid-size
company, their Testing Plan was all of 28 pages. It was up to the
expertise of the tester to know how to test the software, and very
little got documented about what feature(s) to test, prerequisites,
setup, dependencies on other test, the test procedure (that noobs could
understand, and without any gotcha conditions after a test was performed
but with such conditions setup or explained beforehand), and the
expected results, comments, and linkage to a matrix showing which
components of the software got tested by which tests. When
documentation got passed to me (because I was already expounding on the
test docs), it inflated into a 4000-page document. Some components were
huge, so they got broken into smaller components to be manageable by
whomever was the supervisor for that section. Master document mode was
the only way to handle the compendium of all the test docs that
aggregated into a huge overall test plan.

https://www.dummies.com/software/mic...ument-feature/
https://www.officetooltips.com/word_...ment_view.html

I'll look into that, but since I need for the index to be an index of
hte entire book, I don't think breaking it into separate components
would work, especially since most of the book is the very large
descendant report.
However, if your current genealogy software just dumps everything into
one huge .doc[x] file then that's what you are stuck with. Why not use
genealogy software that builds a tree diagram along with notes about
each node (person)? Use software that exports in GEDCOM format which is
usable in many other genealogy software, so you don't restrict what
software that others may choose.

You can see several listed and compared at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...alogy_software

Well I've tried all the present genealogy programs, and now defunct
onles like Roots and TMG, and none seem to offer anything better than
what I have.

cause for the slowdown in document handling. Faster now just means the
document(s) will become slow later as you keep enlarging one huge
document file. NVMe SSDs are faster than SATA SSDs, but they can only
help some regarding slow processes. The genealogy program will load
faster on the C: drive that becomes an NVMe drive, but your huge doc
file is still back on the slow HDD. Since you don't mention upping the
CPU, a program that loads faster (but runs the same in system RAM),
editing the huge doc file on the HDD will not get sped up by going with
a faster SSD drive.

Presumably you'll keep the SATA SSD drive to where you can store some
data files, like the huge doc file. If you start putting lots of doc
files on the NVMe drive that get edited a lot or incur huge write
volume, make sure to up the overprovisioning of the NVMe SSD to prolong
its lifespan. SSDs are self-destructive drives hence the need for
overprovisioning (remapping space) and wear-leveling to move the writes
around to reduce oxide stress on the same junction which eventually
kills the junction. Even if you use the old SATA SSD for some doc
files, if you edit them a lot or generate a lot of write traffic on the
drive, you should up its overprovisioning. Lots of info on the Internet
about how and why to overprovision SSDs, and the software that came with
the SSD should have an overprovisioning option.

You don't mention what OS you are using. Are you sure the SATA SSD, and
later the NVMe SSD, are aligned? Not important for HDDs, but boosts
performance for SSDs.

Yes, it's Win 10 latest update, and SSDs are aligned.
https://www.google.com/search?q=ssd%20alignment

The CPU can be a limiting factor, but mobos have a max speed they'll
support. Without knowing the motherboard brand and model, and knowing
if you're willing to spend a lot more to get incremental performance
boost from the CPU, no one can tell if your setup can make use of a
faster CPU.

I though maybe going to a faster CPU. I have an Intel I5. As I
mentioned in another post, I don't recall exactly what model. My MB
will go up to an I7 I think.
Memory constraints may be another limiting factor; i.e., not enough
memory to load the complete document into system memory, so paging
(swapping to the much slower drive, even for SSD or NVMe compared to
system RAM) is needed to create a sliding view of the document. More
memory means less or no paging. Also, you might be using 32-bit Windows
with 32-bit MS Office instead of 64-bit Windows with 64-bit MS Office.
I could easily add another 2 sticks of RAM to go to 32 GB if that
would help. I think Word is the 64-bit version. I have Office 365, is
there a way to check to make sure?