I am running Word X on an iMac G4 with 512 memory, creating a
book-length document (373 pp, 2.9MB with 1348 numbered paragraphs. I
have loads of cross-refs in the body of the document. When I run it on
Word 2001 (Mac), adding new cross-refs to paragraphs late in the file
(e.g. number 990) takes very little time. But on Word for X it takes
minutes to be able to access even paragraph number 300 using the
Insert>Crossref dialogue, much less to paragraph number 1100! This is
a REAL PAIN. Why should Word for X perform so much slower than the
older Word 2001, running in Classic? If any of you have experienced
this problem, is there a work-around?
Many thanks for any suggestions.
Hi Harry,
There are various things that slow down Word X.
First, try repairing disk permissions:
For OS 10.2.x:
Go to Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities. Open up Disk Utility. Select
your hard disk, then click the First Aid tab. Click the button to "Repair
Disk Permissions".
For OS 10.1.5:
Download the Repair Privileges utility, free from Apple, and run it:
<
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106900>
If you're still not seeing improvement, there could be a lot of causes and
you'll find some previous posts below that may help:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ File corruption:
I would also add the Carbon Registration Database to the list. The first
launch will then take longer since the database of Office apps will have to be
rebuilt then, but it usually helps a lot.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Acrobat conflict:
Acrobat installs a toolbar extension into each of the Startup folders for
Word, PowerPoint, and Excel:
Macintosh HD:Applications:Microsoft Office X:Office:Startup
You can trash them without ill-effect to Acrobat and positive effect for
Office (the application speeds back up). If you have Acrobat and OSX, you
don't need these redundant tools, since you can use OSX Printer Services to
call up Acrobat to print (that is, "save") files as PDF.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Extensis conflict:
The conflict is caused by an interaction with Extensis Suitcase 10.2. When I
launch Word the first time after booting up, it takes maybe 90 seconds of
watching the spinning wheel before it opens a new document. What it's doing (I
think) is searching the hard drive once for each font it thinks it needs for a
blank new document.
The fix is to open the Suitcase window, turn off all but the system fonts,
launch Word, wait......... and when it finally comes up, see which fonts have
been auto-activated (marked with a yellow diamond icon). Option click those to
permanently activate them, and the next time word launches after a reboot, it
come up in 5 seconds. It seems to take roughly 10 seconds more for each font
it wants to auto activate.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ General suggestions for speeding up Word:
1) Work in Normal View as much as you can. This is a power-saving mode and
makes things a lot quicker.
2) Turn OFF all the Automatic crap in Tools>Autocorrect. Most of them create
more troubles than they cure anyway.
3) Give careful consideration to your Preferences>Save>AutoRecovery Save
interval. The shorter the interval, the more frequently you will be
interrupted: the longer the interval, the more data you stand to lose if you
get a crash.
4) Turn Preferences>Save>"Allow Fast Saves" OFF and "Always make backup" ON.
If you have done an upgrade install, these two may be set incorrectly. Fast
Saves causes documents to corrupt on modern file systems. Always make Backup
is essential: Word X crashes quite a bit. Note: If you have not saved the
document, there will be no backup, so get in the habit of saving a document
before you type anything in it, and then every time you stop to think.
5) Turn of Automatic Spelling and Grammar and Wordcount if you are not using
them. Dynamic Word Count is rather hungry and particularly useless unless you
are a lawyer filing court papers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP
Mac Word FAQ: <
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/WordMac/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>
