Libre writer can't handle big file

I have been writing a book using LibreOffice. It is now 30Mb and includes a lot of photos.
On my 32 bit Windows XP machine it ran with no problems. On my new 64 bit Windows 7 PC it can not cope. It hangs up after scrolling past the first few pages.

I decided to split it but can’t do so because it hangs up if I try to copy a few pages.

I am not impressed by this poor performance. I hope I am not going to be forced into buying Microsoft Office.

Lots of Photos and few text? Then scribus is waiting the one for you, get a text editor and install scribus, way to go. http://scribus.net

If you have a book with a number of images you may need to adjust the memory settings to match your document profile. For example TOOLS > OPTIONS > MEMORY.

Is there a difference between the settings in your XP and 7 systems?
There will also be a difference as to whether you link to your images in the document or imbed them directly as to the memory you require.

If you do not allocate enough memory, the performance will suffer with a lot if images.

Thank you folks, I take your points. I have altered the settings and performance is better.
I will look at Scribus when I find the way to improve the download system. I get part files every time.

An office suite is not intended for such a task. I would suggest you to go Scribus[1] way – it is an advanced desktop publishing software compatible with LibreOffice. Although it’s not perfect but I’m happy with it. Using Scribus during couple of years I created few publications largest of them has 100 pages with lot of images. In case of slow performance it has an option temporary to switch off certain types of layout elements.

[1] http://www.scribus.net

@bugsy - You might also be able to use the Master Document functionality to work with smaller pieces a time.

LibreOffice have the performance recession issue in Picture-Handling.

My advice: you can type all you text inside Writer. And arrange them all in Scribus - which is also FLOSS as LibreOffice.

Scribus have a powerful import function that bring the styles from your document into it own style manager.