Except for my use case, which is when you have a 1,200 page document with hundreds of tables, lists, and pictures. The thing grinds to a halt and has all sorts of problems. Yes, I know that MS Word is not the best choice for documents that big, but it's not up to me.
"which is when you have a 1,200 page document with hundreds of tables, lists, and pictures"
This is like saying that SQLite is not a good product because you are using it on a Terabyte database having 1,000,000 hits at the same time... It might work but it would have problems because wasn't designed for that scenario.
I sympathize with you though... since it is not your decision :/
Have you tried the 64-bit version? People still normally install the 32-bit version (mainly for add-on supportability), but if you're working with very large documents, the 64-bit version should work better for you.
That's weird you can't break it down into smaller parts? I worked on a big book, about that size with several people and the major, mainstream publishing company wanted it in individual documents mapping to individual chapters.
We actually did break it up into several parts when making and editing it, but for the "official release" of the document (It's a big-ass test procedure document), they wanted it in one file. And of course there's always some changes you find after you release something.
A document that large must have some kind of a structure that you and your team can use to break it apart into smaller, more manageable chunks. One thing to consider is to place the content into a content management system of kind (a wiki comes to mind) to allow the content to more easily be maintained and grow without the limitations Word creates.
The decision may not have been up to you to keep it all in one Word document but making the case to either break apart the document or find a better system in which to maintain it ought to be easy in the face of the usability issues you mention.
