Powerpoint 2008 a complete disaster - ultra slow, freezes

[PIX]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Severe problems only in ppt (word and entourage fine) when recently upgraded from Office 2004 to Office 2008. Problems occur in ppt files across Macs (all fast processors with lots of RAM) in different operating systems - Leopard and Snow Leopard, and in new files created in PPT 2008 as well as those imported from presentations created in Office 2004.
PPT files which worked flawlessly in Office 2004 and with Tiger are now seizing up, lags of 9 to 10 seconds when typing between keystrokes and text appearing on screen, program freezes when shifting between slide and outline view. Often have to force quit when ppt freezes. Problems so severe as to make ppt virtually unusable.
Both of us in the household use ppt for professional purposes so this is a major problem. Checked the PPT files on a system running Snow Leopard (clean format and install, as opposed to upgraded) and Office 2008 and the speed issue was exactly the same so a clean installation of the OS has not resolved this issue. The problem is not related to ppt file size -- Not related to file size - freezes in files with 200 slides or only 60 slides, same size files worked perfectly for years in 2004.
Appears from Activity Monitor that when using ppt 2008 100% cpu is used up. This happens when switching from slide to outline view, for example, and the coloured disk appears while the program freezes.
Appears from Activity Monitor that when using ppt 2008 100% cpu is used up. This happens when switching from slide to outline view, for example, and the coloured disk appears while the program freezes.

Grateful (and desperate!) for any suggestions/advice as thinking we have to go back to Office 2004 which seems ridiculous.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Severe problems only in ppt (word and entourage fine) when recently upgraded from Office 2004 to Office 2008. Problems occur in ppt files across Macs (all fast processors with lots of RAM) in different operating systems - Leopard and Snow Leopard, and in new files created in PPT 2008 as well as those imported from presentations created in Office 2004.
PPT files which worked flawlessly in Office 2004 and with Tiger are now seizing up, lags of 9 to 10 seconds when typing between keystrokes and text appearing on screen, program freezes when shifting between slide and outline view. Often have to force quit when ppt freezes. Problems so severe as to make ppt virtually unusable.
Both of us in the household use ppt for professional purposes so this is a major problem. Checked the PPT files on a system running Snow Leopard (clean format and install, as opposed to upgraded) and Office 2008 and the speed issue was exactly the same so a clean installation of the OS has not resolved this issue. The problem is not related to ppt file size -- Not related to file size - freezes in files with 200 slides or only 60 slides, same size files worked perfectly for years in 2004.
Appears from Activity Monitor that when using ppt 2008 100% cpu is used up. This happens when switching from slide to outline view, for example, and the coloured disk appears while the program freezes.
Appears from Activity Monitor that when using ppt 2008 100% cpu is used up. This happens when switching from slide to outline view, for example, and the coloured disk appears while the program freezes.

Grateful (and desperate!) for any suggestions/advice as thinking we have to go back to Office 2004 which seems ridiculous.

Hi,

There's a lot of easy things to do - any one of which or a combination
of which could be causing your troubles.

Things I would do in this case:

1. Make sure there isn't a second install of Office 2008. If there's
more than one install, Mac OS X will waste time trying to figure out
which one to use.

2. In the Applications > Utilities folder run Disk Utility. Select your
startup disc and rub both Repair Permissions and Verify disk. If Verify
Disk reports problems, you should boot to the Snow Leopard disc and from
the installer menu choose Utilities - Disc Utility and let it repair the
startup volume.

3. Run the Font Book application. Select all your fonts and validate the
fonts and validate the font files. Resolve duplicates and delete any bad
fonts.

You don't say how much actual RAM is on your computer. If you run out of
actual RAM, Mac OS starts using the hard drive as additional RAM, which
is a real drain on system performance. Take a peek at Activity Monitor
and make sure that you haven't used up all your physical RAM.

-Jim

 

[Jeff_Chapman]

I'd also be interested in hearing the results of these measures taken, to see if anything solves the problem for PIX.

I too have experienced painfully slow text input times with PPT 2008 from time to time, but I cannot isolate the problem, and it doesn't seem to happen all the time for me. Overall, the more objects and text on a slide, the worse the problem seems to be. I can only imagine that PowerPoint's text rendering engine has some performance issues. The Windows version seems considerably faster. And as I've mentioned before on this forum, sometimes typing speed and performance improves when opening and resaving the slide show in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows.

When I ran Font Book, I found quite a few duplicate fonts. But eliminating the duplicates didn't increase the speed of text rendering for me.

Jeff

 

[PIX]

Hi Jim, Many thanks for your reply.
I've done everything you said and to no avail. There's no second copy of Office 2008. Everything was perfect re: disk utility.
validated all fonts -- all ok.
4 MBs of Ram on all Imacs.

PPT 2008 still freezing, unbelievably slow. Have given up on using the program for now because it's simply not functional.
Any other ideas/diagnoses appreciated.

 

[PIX]

Jeff, after wasting exorbitant amounts of time (and money) trying to solve the Office Powerpoint 2008 debacle, a colleague (tech expert) has suggested using Open Office - an elegant and simple solution.
I've abandoned Powerpoint Office 2008 with all of its flaws, sluggishness, freezing problems, in favour of OpenOffice, as it seems to work beautifully for presentations.

 

[Jeff_Chapman]

Glad you found a solution that works for you, although it's too bad that you had such a poor experience with PowerPoint 2008.

I haven't used OpenOffice for Mac much, really - does it seem to meet most of the needs for authoring presentations? I imagine that there might be some compatibility issues working with .pptx files, as it's not a Microsoft product (well, even Microsoft products have compatibility issues with other Microsoft products!), but I'd be interested to hear more details on your experience with it sometime. (Guess I should download and check it out myself... but my experiences with PPT 2008 haven't been quite as drastic as yours, for some reason... except for a rather long slideshow I authored recently, where the text input was for some reason painfully slow, as I wrote.)

Jeff

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Glad you found a solution that works for you, although it's too bad that you had such a poor experience with PowerPoint 2008.

I haven't used OpenOffice for Mac much, really - does it seem to meet most of the needs for authoring presentations? I imagine that there might be some compatibility issues working with .pptx files, as it's not a Microsoft product (well, even Microsoft products have compatibility issues with other Microsoft products!), but I'd be interested to hear more details on your experience with it sometime. (Guess I should download and check it out myself... but my experiences with PPT 2008 haven't been quite as drastic as yours, for some reason... except for a rather long slideshow I authored recently, where the text input was for some reason painfully slow, as I wrote.)

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Does the system log show anything unusual when things get slow?

-Jim