Why is Word 2008 so slow?

[Donn_Forbes]

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

Why is Word 2008 so slow? It often takes 4 or 5 seconds to respond to a simple command when I'm working on a small- to moderate-sized document. Can I do something to speed it up? Or do I need to use Word 2004?

 

[MacAttorney]

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

Why is Word 2008 so slow? It often takes 4 or 5 seconds to respond to a simple command when I'm working on a small- to moderate-sized document. Can I do something to speed it up? Or do I need to use Word 2004?

It is just the opposite for me. I've been surprised by how fast it is
compared to previous versions of Word.

Try repairing permissions:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106712

And you may see better performance if you turn off Word's grammar
checker in Preferences.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Donn:

On an Intel with plenty of memory, Word should be nice and quick. On a PPC
that's struggling for memory it can be a slug.

However, a corrupt Normal Template, a corrupt OLD Normal Template, or a
corrupt Document Elements.dotx file, or a corrupt font cache can slow it
down badly (along with about a zillion other things...)

If you work your way through all the procedures here, you should fix it:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/TroubleshootingIndex.html

My first thought would be the Normal.dotx Template and the Document
Elements.dotx files: that's the most common cause of this. Make sure you
find and remove the previous versions of Normal (no extension on the old
version) as well, otherwise Word will attempt to import their settings.
That's often how this happens.

Cheers

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

Why is Word 2008 so slow? It often takes 4 or 5 seconds to respond to a simple
command when I'm working on a small- to moderate-sized document. Can I do
something to speed it up? Or do I need to use Word 2004?

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[mjvolz]

Dear Donn,

I also found Word 2008 to be painfully slow when my school first required us to "upgrade" several months ago. I am using a PowerBook G4 with a 1G RAM, OS 10.4.11. The tech support at my school tried many different avenues to fix the problem, including removing every speck on the computer related to Office 2004 or 2008, including preferences, identities, caches, and templates, and then reinstalling 2008.

The result has been the same, 2008 is fascinatingly slow, particularly when working with tables (up to 30 seconds to cut and paste a word), and even slower when dealing with Asian fonts. After several weeks of trying to make 2008 work, in the meantime falling behind in my own work, I decided to reinstall 2004 (which I had thankfully backed up elsewhere). Since then, my life is again happy and carefree with a word processing program that works.

After the latest update to 2008 came out, I decided to give 2008 another spin. Still slow. Indeed, considering how many of my coworkers, and the people on this site who have experienced similar problems, it surprises me that 2008 hasn't been pulled off the shelves in a product recall.

In short, if you want to save yourself some time and trouble, I would recommend that you simply return to using Word 2004.