Why is Word 2004 running so slow?

[Dave Leer]

Using MS Word 2004, on my G5 with 1gb of ram, the program seems to run
really slow. There is even a delay between clicking to scroll, and when it
actually starts scrolling through the document.

Is there anyway to speed up the program? Is this a known issue, or is it a
setting on my end?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

There are definite issues with slowness--Word 2004 changed the way the
screen is drawn, and it's caused a number of complaints.

That said, not everyone is affected to the same degree. Some have suggested
that repairing permissions helps. I'm not seeing a scrolling delay with a
25-page text document even in Page Layout view, with only 512MB RAM. Normal
view may be faster for you--if you have lots of graphics that may slow it
down...

If you use google groups to search this group for Word 2004 and slow and
Word 2004 and scroll, you will come up with lots of information on others'
experiences.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.office.word

 

[Jeffrey Weston [MSFT]]

Hey Dave,

Thanks for posting. Is it possible you could be more specific as to what
things you are doing when you notice Word under performing?

The "clicking to scroll" is a good example. Does this happen consistently
across all documents? Or just the larger ones?

Thanks

--
Jeffrey Weston
Mac Word Test
Macintosh Business Unit
Microsoft

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Dave Leer]

Well I have a 30-page document that I am working with and there is a very
large table of data at about page 8. As soon as I get to page 8 with the
table, scrolling slows to a crawl.

If I put my cursor on the screen and try to scroll down with the arrow keys,
it is just as bad, and what ends up happening is there is such a delay
between presing the keys or the scroll bar and the actual movement that when
it does start scrolling, it ends up doing it for quite sometime before
stopping.

 

[Jeffrey Weston [MSFT]]

Hey Dave, thanks for being more specific.

As Daiya said, switching to Normal view can be a good start.

Other tips: If you're table spans multiple pages, it might be good to break
it up a couple of times. Table cells that span multiple pages can also slow
Word down, so you can try breaking the tables there.

If you're doing a large amount of work in just the table, you can try
copying and pasting the table into a new document and working on it there
until your ready to paste it back to the original.

If you're working with graphics that you don't need to currently view or
modify you can turn the "Image Placholder" Preference in Word | Preferences:
View. (Only works for Inline graphics.)

Other general tips can just invovle turning off the background tasks, (if
they're on), which include Spelling/Grammer, Live Word Count, Track Changes,
etc... Saving and then Quitting and Re-Launching Word occastionally could
also help.

Thanks

--
Jeffrey Weston
Mac Word Test
Macintosh Business Unit
Microsoft

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Dave Leer]

thanks for the tips.

also, FYI:

inside the table if I press "return" or "space" within the text in a cell,
there is also a delay between pressing the key and the action taking place.
i will try your suggestions.

 

[Jeffrey Weston [MSFT]]

Hey David,

For that particular delay, one of the reasons it happens is because
everytime you type in a table cell, Word has to recalculate the Width/Height
of each cell and the table to see it needs to change the shape of the
cell/table to fit the changed text.

So unfortunatly the larger the table, the longer the delay.

Thanks

Jeffrey Weston
Mac Word Test
Macintosh Business Unit
Microsoft

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Dave Leer]

thanks for your response.

There are definite issues with slowness--Word 2004 changed the way the
screen is drawn, and it's caused a number of complaints.

That said, not everyone is affected to the same degree. Some have
suggested
that repairing permissions helps. I'm not seeing a scrolling delay with a
25-page text document even in Page Layout view, with only 512MB RAM.
Normal
view may be faster for you--if you have lots of graphics that may slow it
down...

If you use google groups to search this group for Word 2004 and slow and
Word 2004 and scroll, you will come up with lots of information on others'
experiences.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.office.word




--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: <http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/>
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ:

 

[Kenneth Cohen]

One alternative to using large tables in Word is of course to do the work in
Excel and then import the spreadsheet into Word. Works very nicely and it's
possible to link the two files in case of future changes to the spreadsheet.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

I was just about to jump in with "Turn of Squeezy Tables and all will come
right."

That's the biggest nonsense in Word: go to Table>Properties>Table>Options
and turn off "Automatically resize to fit contents."

Surely the whole purpose of tables is so that text column widths DON'T
change, so why on earth would they burn so much power making them change
every time you type a character??

Anyway: Word speeds up a lot if you turn that off.

As it does if you Accept all Tracked Changes.

Cheers

Hey David,

For that particular delay, one of the reasons it happens is because
everytime you type in a table cell, Word has to recalculate the Width/Height
of each cell and the table to see it needs to change the shape of the
cell/table to fit the changed text.

So unfortunatly the larger the table, the longer the delay.

Thanks

Jeffrey Weston
Mac Word Test
Macintosh Business Unit
Microsoft

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410