Why i'ts impossible to work with a single odt file in 2025

I want to work with a single odt file and add pages, images, tables even a movie or audio how many i want. It’s 2025!

And i don’t want to split the file into parts in this case.

I understand there may be some limitations, but a couple of images or more like ~2000 pages and the file barely turns on.

That’s right!

But even in 2025 it would be very helpful if you could tell us which operating system and which version of LibreOffice you are working with.

And also let us know in which file format you are saving.

  • How many images do you have in the document?
  • What size are these images?
  • Are you using the recommended format styles for the texts?

    Thanks.

What is your purpose?

Adding movie or audio to a Writer document does not make a lot of sense. Writer is primarily intended for “frozen” or “static” document like books or papers.

If you want a more dynamic document with multimedia insertion, a better tool would probably be Impress, intended for presentations. A presentation is supposed to interact with the lecturer of reader, transitioning from one slide to the next (even implicitly with clocked shows).


Writer is fully capable to handle huge documents, but this is possible if you compose your document according to some rules. Using 2025-Writer like 1930s-mechanical typewriter is a predictable and deterministic way to throttle Writer snail-speed .

The correct approach to huge document is styling. And in my experience I consider styling mandatory above 5 pages though you won’t notice any problem up to ~750 pages with modern high-speed and giant-computers.

Styling must be used everywhere, not only on paragraphs as in M$ Word. Don’t neglect character, page, list and frame for images. The only feature to avoid is so-called table “styles” because they aren’t styles at all: they are equivalent to macros which fire automatically under certain circumstances, thus potentially pumping a lot of power at your expense. Above 50 pages, prohibit totally direct formatting.

There are other precautions but this is the main one. And there is also a “platinum rule”: design your document as a native one, i.e. save it as .odt. If your existing document is a .doc(x), it is too late. At ~2000 pages, it is already damaged beyond repair by the multiple conversion-translation cycles.

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