Very slow charts in Excel2008

[realdiver]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I've been complaining about slow charts in Excel 2008 since the release came out.
Anytime a chart is worked on the machine essentially freezes. CPU is maxed out (the spinning pizza wheel of death appears).

I have sent files to MS who agree there is a problem. We are now on version 12.1.1. How long does it take to produce a fix for such a catastrophic problem such as this?

Steve

 

[Pat McMillan]

Per my response to your other post:

We're not ignoring feedback on chart performance, but it's true that we
haven't yet been able to make any major changes in that area since we first
released. Unfortunately, changes in charting aren't as easy to make as it
might seem. We're also weighing time invested in one area against time
invested in others.

Just to be clear, though: I don't believe it's accurate to say that anytime
a chart is worked on the machine essentially freezes. If that were case, for
any chart on any configuration, we would definitely have fixed it already.
The reports I'm aware of are of slow performance on charts based on
reasonably large data sets. (Which we completely agree is a problem.)

Thanks,

Pat

 

[Number Cruncher]

I agree that it is with charts for large data sets that it slows to a crawl. When I use smaller files and charts, it works fine. The problem is that many of my files and charts are very large and it is so slow that I simply can't use it. I hope this gets solved soon because I like most of the other features that I have seen when using smaller size files and charts.

 

[realdiver]

I'm pleased that you are aware of the problem. Unfortunatly the dataset doesn't have to be that large for the programme to freeze. Admittedly small datasets don't have the problem, although I wouldn't say it was fast, even with these..
I also experienced a similar problem with Excel2007 (on PC). The fix for this was reletively fast in appearing.

regards
Steve

Per my response to your other post:

 

[Number Cruncher]

To give you an idea of how large of a file makes it slow, here are some numbers. I created a new sheet with a date column and two price columns, basically tracking the price of two things through time. At 100 rows for each of the three columns, the reaction time to building a simple line graph and making changes to it is nearly instantaneous. No problem. At 500 rows, it takes a couple of seconds of waiting for every change. At 1000 rows, it takes 4 to 5 seconds of waiting for every change. And it's not just the change itself, but every action taken. Something as simple as selecting a different line on the graph causes a delay. At 2000 rows, it takes around 10 seconds or more for every action, and at this point is extremely cumbersome at best. At 5000 rows, it has become completely unusable, with wait times anywhere from 45 seconds to well over a minute for every single action taken.

I have many files that are 10,000 rows or more long with 50 or more columns, so you can see how it is totally useless with these. It's not hard for someone analyzing any kind of time series data to get files this large. It could be anything from stock, bond, and commodity prices to daily sales figures over several years for a business. There are any number of applications that result in files this big. Basically, Excel 2008 for Mac will be unusable for such files until the problem is fixed. I hope it is soon.

 

[Pat McMillan]

Thanks. We've definitely seen that performance gets worse as your data set
expands, as you note. We're investigating our options as to ways to improve
charting performance, so this data will be useful.

Thanks,

Pat

 

[Sonny]

HOW can you people release a product that you KNOW is slow?

I mean really... everyone who tested this product at MS thought the performance was acceptable? Who is your target market, people who live in a parallel universe where time is irrelevant?

If your software can't run decently on a 3 GHz Mac Pro, I think you have a serious programming problem on your hands. Something is wrong with your code, and how your programs are structured.

The slowness of the entire 2008 Office Suite is unacceptable and you should consider it an embarrassment to yourselves to have released such an unusable, slow, buggy product.

SHAME ON YOU!

 

[turnerbn]

I can second the fact that a data set of 5,000 or more points renders Excel
2008 unusable. The program entirely freezes. I am an analytical chemist,
and most data sets I work with are thousands of data points. Therefore, I
feel I made a mistake purchasing Office 2008 for Mac. I thought it would
perform better than 2007, but that is not the case.

 

[A Simple User]

I'm finding slow behavior with much smaller data sets. It's the case on all five macs on which I installed Office 2008. It's tough when you click on a number or a part of a chart and nothing happens. Then after a couple seconds (time enough to re-click a lot of times), the spinning disk comes up. At least I know that I clicked! When the spinning wheel goes away, it may or may not respond to some of the mouse clicks made in the meantime.
I'm having a lot of trouble explaining to my staff why I switched them from OfficeX--their productivity and morale are both down.

 

[jason89q]

I completely understand that this slow charting is no the only issue you're working on, and you have to weigh your time on different problems. However, just out of curiosity, PLEASE tell me what else is bigger than this issue.

In my experience, this slow behavior is with a dataset around 2,000 points (e.g. 1,000 points for x, 1,000 pts for y). I have a last year's Macbook pro (2.4 GHz C2D with 4G ram).

What I find really ironic is that one of the major features of Excel 2008 is "allowing" much large dataset in one spreadsheet than Excel 2004. However, what's the point of "allowing" a much larger dataset when the program CANNOT handle it?

Moreover, I really don't think a several thousand points of data qualifies a "large" dataset in today's world. A high school student might be dealing with a set larger than that.

Per my response to your other post:





We're not ignoring feedback on chart performance, but it's true that we
haven't yet been able to make any major changes in that area since we
first released. Unfortunately, changes in charting aren't as easy to make
as it might seem. We're also weighing time invested in one area against
time invested in others.





Just to be clear, though: I don't believe it's accurate to say that anytime
a chart is worked on the machine essentially freezes. If that were case,
for any chart on any configuration, we would definitely have fixed it
already. The reports I'm aware of are of slow performance on charts based
on reasonably large data sets. (Which we completely agree is a problem.)





Thanks,





Pat

Version: 2008 > Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) > Processor:

Intel > > I've been complaining about slow charts in Excel 2008 since
the release came > out. > Anytime a chart is worked on the machine essentially
freezes. CPU is maxed out > (the spinning pizza wheel of death appears).version > 12.1.1. How long does it take to produce a fix for such a catastrophic
problem > such as this? > > Steve





-- Pat McMillan Macintosh Business Unit Microsoft Corp. This posting is
provided �AS IS� with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Pat McMillan]

Thanks. If I could give you full insight to our processes, resource
allocations, and timelines I would. Unfortunately, I can't. We really are
working hard on these charting issues as we speak. But as you will see from
reading this newsgroup, different things are important to different
customers. Many customers have told us, for example, that the occasional
typing slowdowns in Excel are the most important problem they're facing. But
most of our customers have never even encountered this.

I also wish I could say that we have some fixes for chart performance right
now, but I unfortunately can't say that either. But we really are hoping to
provide some improvements soon. I hope you'll continue to watch for Office
2008 updates and continue to let us know if we're not fixing your most
important scenarios.

Thanks,

Pat

 

[mcpete]

Hello Pat,

First off, I really appreciate the hard working folks at MBU taking the time to participate in the forums, listening and providing feedback to the users. Also, being in the industry as a consultant, I understand the need to prioritize the limited resources.

I just wanted to add myself to the list of people that find the current Excel 2008 redraw performance unusable and unacceptable. I do work with large data sets. The data was created on a notebook Windows XP PC with 1.6GHz Pentium-M (Dothan) with 2GB of RAM running Office2007. It was getting a bit slow on the old notebook, but we are talking only a couple of seconds of delay. As I type, I'm trying to open the file on my MBP 2.4GHz C2D, 4GB RAM and it's showing the beach ball. I've had time to launch Safari, grab a Diet Coke, look up this forum, sign-up as a user and typed this message and it is still working on opening the file. In fact, I've just added another data series to the existing chart(XY, 10 series, 7.2K points/series) on the 1.6GHz single core PC while all this is going on. I know the file will eventually open, but after that everything I do to the chart requires substantial amount of time to render (even correcting a typo in the axis label) and also, I've learned my lessons and disabled "Quick preview" in the printing dialog. As a quick fix, can we alter the rendering frequency (or even make it manual) for chart drawing in Excel2008?

Enough whining on my part. If a fix is not on the horizon, can MBU offer any work around in the meantime? Thinking outside of the box, does this problem exist in Excel 2004? If not, can MBU offer Excel2004 as a free download for the users who needs it and install it along side with Excel 2008 (like what Apple did with iMovie6)? Alternatively, can MBU offer, free of charge, Excel2007 for Windows that runs under a Virtual PC wrapper? Of course, all of this would be done with the understanding that this is a temporary fix, while Excel2008 is being updated.

Anything you can offer to alleviate the situation is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Peter

BTW, still beach ball'd

 

[Pat McMillan]

Thanks Peter. I have passed your suggestions on to the broader Mac Office
team for suggestion. I of course can't make any promises, but I can assure
you that your feedback and suggestions are being heard. I honestly don't
know of any workarounds at the moment, but if we come across them, we'll let
this group know right away.

Thanks,

Pat

 

[Ben Christensen]

I want to also put my vote in on the importance of this.

Most of the reason I use Excel is to analyze data with charting -- and it's
always thousands of rows, often 50,000+.

Excel 2008 is completely useless as the other examples on this forum have
already stated so I won't repeat it.

It's faster to run Parallels with Excel 2003 on my Macbook Pro (4GB memory)
than to use the native Excel 2008! That's ridiculous that I can emulate
another complete operating system and it be faster!

I'm very disappointed that it has yet to be resolved.

This is an extremely sensitive topic amongst all people in my company that
deal with this problem and makes Excel virtually useless to all of us except
for reporting our reimbursement forms. Absolutely wrong that reimbursement
forms is ALL I can use Excel 2008 for and not doing my real work.

Ben