Several possibilities:
1. If you have an older version of Outlook, make sure that journaling is not
enabled. In some versions it is enabled by default, even if you have never
used Outlook. This feature keeps track of every document opened and closed
in Word and/or Excel.
2. Make sure your printer driver is installed locally even if you're using a
network printer. Word itself will be slow to open if it can't find the
printer.
3. One of the most common causes of slow document opening, though, is its
being attached to a template that has been moved or deleted or is
unavailable because it's on the network and you are not connected to the
network. If this is the issue, you need to either attach a different
(available) template such as Normal.dot (making sure that "Automatically
update document styles" is *not* checked) or reattach the existing template
in its new location, preferably not on the network. This can be done, of
course, only after the document is open, but it will expedite opening it the
next time.
