There is not enough memory or disk space to update the display

Imagine you were working on the most important Microsoft word document of your lifetime, then you suddenly come across this message “There is not enough memory or disk space to update the display.” At first, you think it’s a random Microsoft Office error, but then after trying to refresh and re-open the file, the same error reappears.

That’s what I recently went through. I was trying to edit a letter that was to be sent to multiple recipients. However, the error kept on popping. I initially thought this was a RAM error. So I copied the file to a flash disk and proceeded to open it with a more powerful computer. However, the error reappeared.

It was frustrating. I was supposed to deliver the edited file the next morning. Yet, it was about 1900 hours; I only had less than 12 hours to do it. In this article, I document how I got around the error and successfully submitted the file on time.

Step 1: Check your File’s Properties

If you’ve encountered a memory error while trying to open a Microsoft Word document, the first worthwhile thing to do is to check the properties of your file. All you have to do is right-click on your file and select “file properties.”

Checking the file properties allows you to have a glimpse of what type of file you are dealing with. Once you get to know the type of file, you can start to guess correctly about the possible source of the problem.

In my case, the file type was “Microsoft Word 97 – 2003 Document (.doc)”. Since I was using Microsoft Word 2013, I immediately suspected that the file type might have something to do with the problem.

Step 2: Try to rename the file

Initially, I thought renaming the file would help. However, the problem persisted. I thought that I would update the file type by renaming it, but that didn’t work.

Step 3: Updating the file Format

After figuring out that renaming the file did not solve the problem, I decided to save the file using different settings. This worked. However, I did not manage to recover some files.

Step 3.5: Open file with Google Docs

Another fail-proof solution was opening the file with Google Docs. Google Docs is designed to open a variety of file types. So it will most certainly open any Microsoft word document type.