Moving objects

[blengtat]

I have Word 2008 and am trying to make a brochure. I put an object on
the page, or a photo, or a text box, then I try to move it. It moves
but is painfully slow. How can I move things around the page at a
decent speed?

 

[John McGhie]

"Drag" it, then "Nudge" it.

Drag it roughly into position, then nudge it with the cursors to get it
exactly where you want it.

However, the real issue is one of available machine resources (you're
running your computer out of power!). Moving a full-colour image is a huge
load on the computer: it has to move every pixel, one dot at a time. Things
are getting very busy in there

If you want to do a lot of this, add RAM to the computer! 4GB is a nice
round number: eight if your computer will hold that much.

And stop all of the other applications that are running, while you do this.
Not just minimised, quit them. Each application you run uses some memory
and some CPU, even if it is sitting in the background doing nothing!

If you find things a bit slow, shut the machine down, turn the power off,
and wait a couple of minutes (at least 60 seconds). Then bring it back up
again. This causes Unix to run its house-keeping tasks, and that can make a
big difference to your speed.

There's a growing philosophical issue out there...

A mate of mine used to complain constantly about how "slow" his iMac was
when doing this kind of thing. I discovered that while he worked, he liked
to be listening to music on iTunes, and had Internet TV playing a news
channel in the background! These are two of the heaviest tasks you can give
a computer. I told him to go and buy a Mac Pro. He's a lot happier now

Computer manufacturers have created a problem with "unrealistic
expectations". By claiming that "everything is faaast" and saying that
"everything is a super-computer" they have bred a world full of users who
expect this to be true! Well: It's NOT

Laptops are a GREAT idea if you want to take your office with you. But
really they're for "reading things", and if you want to edit on them, unless
you fill them up with memory they're going to be slow. An iMac is a GREAT
machine for surfing the Internet, but if you want to do "work" on it, you
need to add memory and use one application at a time. If you want to make
good-looking, complex, brochures ‹ and do this all day for a living ‹ you
need to invest in the computer that was designed for that kind of service:
the Mac Pro

Cheers

I have Word 2008 and am trying to make a brochure. I put an object on
the page, or a photo, or a text box, then I try to move it. It moves
but is painfully slow. How can I move things around the page at a
decent speed?

--

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[blengtat]

"Drag" it, then "Nudge" it.

Drag it roughly into position, then nudge it with the cursors to get it
exactly where you want it.

I know how to drag and nudge, but the trouble is, I can drag, go get a
cup of coffee, then if I'm lucky it will be where I dragged to when I
get back.

However, the real issue is one of available machine resources (you're
running your computer out of power!).  Moving a full-colour image isa huge
load on the computer: it has to move every pixel, one dot at a time.  Things
are getting very busy in there

If you want to do a lot of this, add RAM to the computer!  4GB is a nice
round number: eight if your computer will hold that much.

I just checked. My Macbook only has 2 GB of RAM and is full. It is a
Core Duo book, not Core 2 Duo.

And stop all of the other applications that are running, while you do this.
Not just minimised, quit them.  Each application you run uses some memory
and some CPU, even if it is sitting in  the background doing nothing!

I tried this. It didn't help.

If you find things a bit slow, shut the machine down, turn the power off,
and wait a couple of minutes (at least 60 seconds).  Then bring it back up
again.  This causes Unix to run its house-keeping tasks, and that can make a
big difference to your speed.

I didn't try this, and will, but don't have much hope for it improving
Word's performance much.

There's a growing philosophical issue out there...

A mate of mine used to complain constantly about how "slow" his iMac was
when doing this kind of thing.  I discovered that while he worked, he liked
to be listening to music on iTunes, and had Internet TV playing a news
channel in the background!  These are two of the heaviest tasks you can give
a computer.  I told him to go and buy a Mac Pro.  He's a lot happier now

Haven't been using iTunes or internet TV, but I can see how this would
slow things down.

Computer manufacturers have created a problem with "unrealistic
expectations".  By claiming that "everything is faaast" and saying that
"everything is a super-computer" they have bred a world full of users who
expect this to be true!  Well:  It's NOT

Laptops are a GREAT idea if you want to take your office with you.  But
really they're for "reading things", and if you want to edit on them, unless
you fill them up with memory they're going to be slow.  An iMac is aGREAT
machine for surfing the Internet, but if you want to do "work" on it, you
need to add memory and use one application at a time.  If you want to make
good-looking, complex, brochures ‹ and do this all day for a living ‹ you
need to invest in the computer that was designed for that kind of service:
the Mac Pro

Unfortunately I am currently out of a job. I was asked to put together
a fundraising Christmas catalog for my church's missions outreach. So
it isn't something I do all the time. I can't justify a new Mac even
if I could afford one, nor can I afford one even if I could justify
it.

Here's my solution: I added all the photos to Word and applied the
effect I like. Then I saved it as a .doc file and opened it with
Pages. I can move things around quickly in Pages.

Thanks for the information.

 

[Jeff Chapman]

If you want to make

good-looking, complex, brochures ‹ and do this all day for a living ‹ you
need to invest in the computer that was designed for that kind of service:
the Mac Pro

In general, I would also agree with this.
However, in this case, considering what
our user Blengtat is saying, I would encourage
him/her to first try and open a blank document in
Word, add a single photo, and then see if the
slowness problem is occurring straight away
with that blank document, or if it's an issue
with denser, more complex layouts.

How complex is this brochure that we're talking
about? Are we talking about a single-columned
brochure with some wrap-around text and a few inline
photos here and there, or are we talking about a
triple-columned bonanza with text and shadow effects,
gradation styles, photos with Word effects like
feathering and photos frame styles applied, the
whole kit-and-kaboodle?

Photos in general (especially unprocessed JPEGs
from digital cameras) can be several MBs in size,
and no matter how much you reduce the physical
dimensions, they will still take up a considerable
amount of RAM to manipulate. I would consider the
target audience for the media first of all:
is this brochure mainly for online viewing, or is
it going to be printed at high-quality?
If you're aiming at a predominantly online
audience, the photos should be processed and
reduced in terms of data size in a program such
as Photoshop or the likes before inserting them
into Word.

Also, I wouldn't consider that the system in question
is so woefully inadequate that it is unable to
handle the task. 2 GBs of RAM with a Core Duo isn't
such a bad setup. You should be able to at least
do some short brochures in Word without too many
performance issues in an ideal situation.

I'm also wondering: is your MacBook hooked up to
anything else? Printer, hard drive, etc?
Is Time Machine or Spotlight running in the
background? (Sometimes things can suddenly slow down
to a crawl, and you realize that BOTH Spotlight
and Time Machine are doing their thing all at once.)
Try disconnecting everything (including your
network and AirMac connection) and see if the
problem persists. While you're at it, disable your
anti-virus software and see if this speeds things
up any.

How about creating a new user, logging in and then
starting Word? Same problems?

Jeff

 

[blengtat]

In general, I would also agree with this.
However, in this case, considering what
our user Blengtat is saying, I would encourage
him/her to first try and open a blank document in
Word, add a single photo, and then see if the
slowness problem is occurring straight away
with that blank document, or if it's an issue
with denser, more complex layouts.

I opened a new document and it is better. But even the original one is
somewhat better. One thing I did was logout the Guest user account
that was sitting in the background waiting to be switched to. Another
thing I did was disconnect the connection I had established with the
iMac on the network. Another thing I did was uninstall the Lexmark
software from my MacBook. I have an old all-in-one. I don't use it to
print or copy, just scan a couple times a month. It isn't usually even
plugged in to the MacBook, but the MacBook is constantly checking to
see if I have pressed the button on the scanner. Not any more.

One thing that I did not do was turn off Airport. That might help too.

How complex is this brochure that we're talking
about? Are we talking about a single-columned
brochure with some wrap-around text and a few inline
photos here and there, or are we talking about a
triple-columned bonanza with text and shadow effects,
gradation styles, photos with Word effects like
feathering and photos frame styles applied, the
whole kit-and-kaboodle?

It is 6 pages, each 11x17. We plan to print it. There is a photo of a
world map as the background of each page. Then 6 photos on each page,
each with the beveled perspective effect applied. There are 6
rectangles on each page with a texture applied. There is a text box
for each rectangle.

Photos in general (especially unprocessed JPEGs
from digital cameras) can be several MBs in size,
and no matter how much you reduce the physical
dimensions, they will still take up a considerable
amount of RAM to manipulate. I would consider the
target audience for the media first of all:
is this brochure mainly for online viewing, or is
it going to be printed at high-quality?
If you're aiming at a predominantly online
audience, the photos should be processed and
reduced in terms of data size in a program such
as Photoshop or the likes before inserting them
into Word.

Also, I wouldn't consider that the system in question
is so woefully inadequate that it is unable to
handle the task. 2 GBs of RAM with a Core Duo isn't
such a bad setup. You should be able to at least
do some short brochures in Word without too many
performance issues in an ideal situation.

I'm also wondering: is your MacBook hooked up to
anything else? Printer, hard drive, etc?
Is Time Machine or Spotlight running in the
background? (Sometimes things can suddenly slow down
to a crawl, and you realize that BOTH Spotlight
and Time Machine are doing their thing all at once.)
Try disconnecting everything (including your
network and AirMac connection) and see if the
problem persists. While you're at it, disable your
anti-virus software and see if this speeds things
up any.

I don't have Time Machine and don't know what Spotlight is. Wait, the
little blue circle with magnifying glass. Can I turn it off so it
isn't running? I never use it since I also have Quicksilver.

 

[John McGhie]

Right....

Now we're starting to see where your machine's power was being exhausted

One thing I did was logout the Guest user account
that was sitting in the background waiting to be switched to.

Whoah!! Never leave the Guest Account enabled! That's like pinning a
target to your back that says "Aim here to steal my credit card numbers".
Turn it on if you want someone to use your computer, then turn it off again
as they're on the way out of your door

Another
thing I did was disconnect the connection I had established with the
iMac on the network.

That should not have slowed things down much. Unless you have routine
synching going on, it should just "sit there". However, like you, I don't
leave the network connected to my other computers unless I need it.

Another thing I did was uninstall the Lexmark
software from my MacBook. I have an old all-in-one. I don't use it to
print or copy, just scan a couple times a month. It isn't usually even
plugged in to the MacBook, but the MacBook is constantly checking to
see if I have pressed the button on the scanner. Not any more.

I think that's a useful change. Whenever Word is running, it is constantly
checking the "Default Printer" to learn how to format documents. There's
quite a bit of chatter involved, and some CPU and memory are used up in the
process.

One thing that I did not do was turn off Airport. That might help too.

It might, but only if your neighbours are stealing your bandwidth A
password-protected Airport basically transfers data only when you tell it
to, so they don't cause too much trouble. But people who forget to secure
them can have a whole suburb surfing for free and wonder why "their" machine
is slow

It is 6 pages, each 11x17. We plan to print it. There is a photo of a
world map as the background of each page. Then 6 photos on each page,
each with the beveled perspective effect applied. There are 6
rectangles on each page with a texture applied. There is a text box
for each rectangle.

The number and size of pages makes no difference. The key factor is "the
number of things on those pages". In your case, that's quite a lot, so it's
a document to treat with respect

I don't have Time Machine

So how are you backing up? You are aware that if a hard disk fails, you do
not lose "just some" of its data, you lose ALL of it? And they do fail:
about every three or four years.

There are companies out there that claim to be able to get data back from a
dead HDD. In some cases they will be completely successful, depending on
what was wrong with the disk. What they're not so keen on telling you is
that they charge about $15,000 per disk to do a good job

Can I turn it off so it
isn't running? I never use it since I also have Quicksilver.

Yes, you can turn Spotlight off, but don't, otherwise various system tasks
will fail. For example, many updaters these days use Spotlight to find the
things they need to update. If it is not running, updates will fail.

Hope this helps

--

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Clive Huggan]

On 27/10/09 5:34 PM, in article C70CC38B.46A%[email protected], "Jeff

If you're aiming at a predominantly online
audience, the photos should be processed and
reduced in terms of data size in a program such
as Photoshop or the likes before inserting them
into Word.

<snip>

I think the best among the "likes" is ImageWell (www.xtralean.com). It's
simple, quick and precise.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan