Typing Hiccup in Word

[Matthew Canedy]

I have noticed recently that I very frequently have typing "hiccups"
in Word--sometimes for several seconds. I thought it could perhaps be
the comptuer, but it's brand new and I don't have any problems with
any other programs. I believe it's specific to Microsoft Office (I've
noticed it in Excel as well) and I'm wondering what, if anything, can
be done to fix it. Its so regular that it is really starting to grate
my nerves. (I have installed all the latest updates for Office, so I
shoudl be current).

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Matthew,

I take it that by hiccup you mean slow down? There are various reasons why
this might happen. First try repairing disk permissions and reboot: 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". (This assumes you're in OS X 10.2.x, not 10.1.x which is
different ... please always state your OS version!)

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope something here helps.

 

[John McGhie [MVP]]

Hi Matthew:

These are "System Busy" pauses. You are now on a pre-emptive multitasking
system, and Word is waiting to get the CPUs attention.

The more memory you install and the faster your processor, and the later
your operating system, the less irritating the pauses will be. But they
will always be there.

The problems are not "specific" to Microsoft Office, they will happen with
any of the old Carbon applications, because the priority tuning of the
Carbon Libraries is appalling. They're just more noticeable in Office
because it is more power-hungry than many applications.

However, such pauses will also happen with the modern applications: it's
just that Cocoa libraries are much better tuned so the pauses are much
shorter.

Cheers


This responds to article <[email protected]>,

I have noticed recently that I very frequently have typing "hiccups"
in Word--sometimes for several seconds. I thought it could perhaps be
the comptuer, but it's brand new and I don't have any problems with
any other programs. I believe it's specific to Microsoft Office (I've
noticed it in Excel as well) and I'm wondering what, if anything, can
be done to fix it. Its so regular that it is really starting to grate
my nerves. (I have installed all the latest updates for Office, so I
shoudl be current).

Any advice would be appreciated.

--
All Spam and attachments blocked by Microsoft Entourage for Mac OS X. Please
post replies to the newsgroup to maintain the thread.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP: Word for Macintosh and Word for Windows
Consultant Technical Writer <[email protected]>
+61 4 1209 1410; Sydney, Australia: GMT + 10 hrs