WORD 6.0 and printers

[Jonathan Leer <jleer -at- MV -dot- MV -dot- COM>]

I just finished killing myself to get a working draft of a 600 page manual
 written (by some unsuspecting soul) in Microsoft WORD 6.0 for Windows. I had
 two plems:

* WORD (even at this new version) has a problem digesting document files larger
than 100 pages.
* My printer kept timing out.

These problems continued despite my increasing available free memory, free
disk space, and reducing active processes (windows).

My questions to the list:

* is there anyway to use WORD to manipulate large documents without waiting an
 hour for it to repaginate the document everytime you do something (its even
 worse
if you set everything up in a master document)?
* what's the best printer or printer configuration available for the Windows
 evnvironemnt for full-blown document production (not anybody can do it retail
desktop publishing which is fine for 10 page reports)?
* what is the best software and hardware configuration for PC publishing
today of large, complex technical manuals that include numerous autonumbering
schemes, tables of contents/figures/index, cross-references, fields, and
graphics?

I will tell you. I am left with a bad taste in my mouth about these
software development houses that create the latest trend-setting products that
don't do squat for us mega document manipulaters.  Who really wants to spend
 late nights fighting with the equipment just so your boss or client can chew
 you out for taking so long to produce what should be an easy-to-produce
 document.
No wonder techwriters still get treated like whail XXXX on the bottom of the
deep blue sea (look Ma, anybody can do desktop publishing).

Any way, your comments will be appreciated for this writer/editor/produer who
is tired of late nights trying to beat the deadlines!
JOn Leer
].