Delay in Type appearing on computer screen

[John Decker]

I notice when typing a word processing document in Microsoft Word that there is
a slight delay before
the type appears on the computer screen. Is there something that can be done to
correct this annoying
problem. I am using Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac. My Mac configuration is as
follows:

iMac G5- 1.8 Ghz, Mac OS 10.3.8, 2GB RAM.



JD

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Is this all typing?

Occasionally I see a delay if I switch back into MS Word and start typing
before the program has fully activated, but I type pretty fast and have not
been able to outrun Word. Word 2004 has some known slownesses relating to
appearance but this has not been one of them.

Previous threads suggest that repairing permissions (which is good
maintenance anyhow) will improve this problem.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

It will also go faster if you're working in Normal view as opposed to Page
Layout view. Then Word doesn't have to worry about pagination.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[John Decker]

My setup is like yours; I was just noticing this too. What I see is that
sometimes I can type a key and nothing will happen, but when I type the
*next* key, both characters will appear at once. m.

--------------------------------------------
Right...ON, Matt,

I check permissions and changed to Normal View as was suggested but nothing has
corrected the
delay. I thought that it may be my computer and I rebuilt my disk directory with
DiskWarrior but Word
still has the same noticeable delay. I am not sure how to correct this. If you
find out anything please
post here.

JD

 

[Beth Rosengard]

--------------------------------------------
Right...ON, Matt,

I check permissions and changed to Normal View as was suggested but nothing
has corrected the delay. I thought that it may be my computer and I rebuilt my
disk directory with DiskWarrior but Word still has the same noticeable delay.
I am not sure how to correct this. If you find out anything please post here.

Here's another possibility which came in from another newsgroup poster. I
doubt it will help Matt since he keeps his fonts so mean and lean, but it
may help you, John. If it does, please post back and let us know. Here
goes:

I had this problem too. Word slowed right down not just when updating
formatting, but also when typing characters. For all I know this is just
Voodoo - I'm not sure if it's a font problem or a preferences problem.

But I did manage to solve it:

I checked font book and noticed duplicate fonts. So I quit Word, used fontbook
to remove the duplicates, then trashed the MS Office preferences except for
"Office 11 First Run" and "Office Registration Cache 11" in
~/library/preferences/Microsoft/

For good measure I logged out / logged back in again. When I started Word
again everything was back to normal speed, though I had to reset some of my
settings.

My guess is that if it really is a font problem, the only file you need to get
rid of in the preferences folder is the "Office Font Cache (11)" I should have
tried this first, but I was on a tight deadline, and a little too panicky to
experiment.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[matt neuburg]

Here's another possibility which came in from another newsgroup poster. I
doubt it will help Matt since he keeps his fonts so mean and lean, but it
may help you, John. If it does, please post back and let us know. Here
goes:

Just to expand on this: If you think you're having a font problem, trash
the Office Font Cache and also the four system-level font cache files -
Font Finagler is the easy way to do this, if you don't know what the
files are - and restart the computer immediately.

I do rather doubt that this has anything to do with the problem here,
though. I suspect it's part of the same silliness where, for example,
sometimes when you type command-X to cut nothing happens until you
subsequently wiggle the mouse. There is simply something wrong with
Word's event-driven model. It's no big deal, really. m.

 

[John Decker]

Here's another possibility which came in from another newsgroup poster. I
doubt it will help Matt since he keeps his fonts so mean and lean, but it
may help you, John. If it does, please post back and let us know. Here
goes:

--------------------------------------------------
Dear Beth,

I followed the directions to the letter. I checked my fonts with Fontbook and
did find some duplicate
fonts (black dots next to them) which I remove with Fontbook (highlighted the
individual fonts-- Edit>
Resolve Duplicates) Next I went to User Name>Library>Preferences>Microsoft
Folder and first trashed
only "Office Font Cache 11", booted the Mac and launched Microsoft Word. This
did help to great
extent, there was less delay but the delay was still present.

Next I trashed everything in the Microsoft folder with the exception of "Office
11 First Run" and "Office
Registration Cache 11" and booted the Mac and again launched Microsoft Word. I
could not see any
perceptible difference between this procedure and the first where I just trashed
"Office Font Cache 11"
[*]

I am using a wireless keyboard and mouse with the iMac G5 and thought that may
be the cause and
substituted a wired keyboard and wired mouse. This did not, however, have any
effect.


In conclusion, it appeared that deleting just the "Office Font Cache 11" did
help to a great extent.
However it did not eliminate the delay completely.


[*] Need to warn people to backup their documents when trashing everything in
the Microsoft Folder
because all documents will be lost.



JD

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

[*] Need to warn people to backup their documents when trashing everything in
the Microsoft Folder
because all documents will be lost.

There are no documents whatsoever in the Microsoft folder you are referring
to in Preferences (~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/). There are
_preferences_ there, which would have to be reset, not _that big_ a deal;
plus the Custom Dictionary, which you should indeed save. Your Entourage
data is on a completely different folder: ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/.
And your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents should be wherever you saved
them somewhere in ~/Documents presumably, NEVER anywhere in ~/Library.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[John Decker]

Just to expand on this: If you think you're having a font problem, trash
the Office Font Cache and also the four system-level font cache files -
Font Finagler is the easy way to do this, if you don't know what the
files are - and restart the computer immediately.

I do rather doubt that this has anything to do with the problem here,
though. I suspect it's part of the same silliness where, for example,
sometimes when you type command-X to cut nothing happens until you
subsequently wiggle the mouse. There is simply something wrong with
Word's event-driven model. It's no big deal, really. m.

-----------------------------------------------------------
I just tried Font Finagler and deleted Office Font Cache and system level cache
files and it did not help.
I am inclinded to agree with you that this is a Microsoft problem. It appears
that Word is trying to learn
your typing style and anticipate movements. It is a minor issue that I can live
with. In toto, Office 2004
is a winner for the Mac enthusiasts.

JD

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

(People, do we have something against snipping?

I am inclinded to agree with you that this is a Microsoft problem. It appears
that Word is trying to learn
your typing style and anticipate movements.

No, that's not it--were you joking?

Matt is talking about how they changed the way the screen is drawn in Word
2004--text has a lower priority than updating the correct position of the
mouse, for instance--so when you paste it takes a while to show up, but you
can speed it up by clicking the mouse (well, I can't, I have to scroll up
and down, but supposedly that works for other people). I'm surprised you
don't seem to be noticing that. So delay in typing is probably another
aspect of that, and the scrolling issues that some others mentioned probably
is as well.

Supposedly this was a deliberate design change--it's driving me crazy--but
since I suspect it was less a deliberate change and more a forced compromise
to deal with the changes needed to enable mostly-Unicode, I guess it can't
be undone.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

I do rather doubt that this has anything to do with the problem here,
though. I suspect it's part of the same silliness where, for example,
sometimes when you type command-X to cut nothing happens until you
subsequently wiggle the mouse. There is simply something wrong with
Word's event-driven model. It's no big deal, really. m.

If that were the case, wouldn't everyone have the same problem? I don't
experience any delay in typing or cutting text. This is in a 25 page
document in Page Layout view.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Daiya & Matt,

Would you please each send me one document in which you experience these
typing and/or cutting & pasting delays? I want to see if I can reproduce
your experience here. If I can't, then there's something different in our
systems (third-party software, perhaps?) that accounts for this phenomenon.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Daiya & Matt,

Would you please each send me one document in which you experience these
typing and/or cutting & pasting delays? I want to see if I can reproduce
your experience here. If I can't, then there's something different in our
systems (third-party software, perhaps?) that accounts for this phenomenon.

Also: speed of computer (include model, CPU, RAM) and speed of typing
(include words per sec?).


--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Also: speed of computer (include model, CPU, RAM) and speed of typing
(include words per sec?).

Yes, of course. Just FYI, I'm on a G5 iMac with 1GB RAM and I type over 60
wpm (at least I used to many years ago; I suspect I'm faster now with all
the typing I do).

Beth

 

[matt neuburg]

Daiya & Matt,

Would you please each send me one document in which you experience these
typing and/or cutting & pasting delays? I want to see if I can reproduce
your experience here

It's not document-related; it's just something that happens now and
then. There's nothing to send. m.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

It's not document-related; it's just something that happens now and
then. There's nothing to send. m.

Yeah--it happens in a bunch of documents. By the way, I never used to see
it either, when I first went to OS X. It took a while to show up. I
distinctly recall insisting something must be wrong with everyone else's
system, until Paul posted with info from the MacBU. I only see the slowness
I don't know how fast I type--but Paul, I think that's irrelevant to the
slowness on paste question--I type fairly fast and have never outrun Word or
Entourage.

Daiya

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Daiya:

Yeah, I get it sometimes on this iBook. ibooks are notorious slugs

Basically, the delay is simply "because the computer is busy." People with
dual G5's are unlikely to be bothered by it. People on slow iBooks handling
complex documents with minimal memory will see it quite often, particularly
if the computer has lots of other applications open at the time.

I'm not particularly bothered by it, but the way I operate, Word tends to be
the only application open (or Word and Entourage only) when I am working on
complex documents (the "size" of the document doesn't have a lot to do with
it, but the "complexity" of it does).

If I have a 2,000 page document consisting almost entirely of text, I am
unlikely to see pauses. If I have a 100-page document will hundreds of
cross-references, StyleRefs, tables, graphics and whatever, I will get them.

If I have Word, Entourage, Firefox, Excel, a large download, and Virtual PC
all running, they will be frequent enough and long enough to be annoying.
People coming in from OS 9 will particularly notice it, because in OS 9 the
foreground application had exclusive control of the CPU until it felt like
relinquishing it. In OS X, everyone has to play nice and learn to share

The pauses will ALWAYS be there: that's the way pre-emptively multitasking
operating systems work. But on a machine with plenty of grunt, they will be
so short the human eye can't detect them.

So we have three choices: 1) Pawn the wife and kids and buy a
supercomputer, 2) Learn to ignore the pauses -- the system will catch up
eventually, you won't loose anything, or 3) Learn to Quit rather than
minimise applications you are not immediately using. OS X is far better at
cleaning up fragmented memory compared with OS 9, so there's no penalty
involved in closing apps and re-opening them when you next need them.

Cheers

Yeah--it happens in a bunch of documents. By the way, I never used to see
it either, when I first went to OS X. It took a while to show up. I
distinctly recall insisting something must be wrong with everyone else's
system, until Paul posted with info from the MacBU. I only see the slowness

I don't know how fast I type--but Paul, I think that's irrelevant to the
slowness on paste question--I type fairly fast and have never outrun Word or
Entourage.

Daiya

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410