Why so slow??

[Ken Chandler]

I¹m running Mac OS 10.3.9 with 540 mb ram, Word 2004

Word is always extremely slow in basic editing operations like scrolling,
deleting, etc.

My document is rather long (200+ pages + graphics), but I did not have this
problem with Word 10 and Panther. After installing Tiger, I began having a
problem. Going back to Panther and Word 2004 did not solve the problem.

I have tried many things including helpful suggestions on this newsgroup,
and spoken at length with MS tech support for many months. For example, I¹ve
renamed the normal.dot, repaired disk permissions etc.

Someone suggested using Master/subdocuments, but so far I have not tried
this.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Ken C.

 

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

Hi Ken:

OK, well you've already done the obvious things.

I assume that you have checked that Track Changes is OFF rather than just
hidden? If you continue to collect tracked changes in a big document, it
will get very slow...

540 MB of memory is fine for most purposes, but for big documents you will
get a useful speed increase if you double it.

Other than that, I assume you have tried copying everything but the last
paragraph mark in the document into a fresh new document? That cleans out
all the editing rubbish in the document and can speed things up
dramatically.

Now: You need to understand that the number of "pages" has no effect on
Word's responsiveness. Internally, a Word file has no "pages" so Word is
unaware of them. A Word file will go up to around 5,500 pages without a
problem if you have the hardware for it.

What makes the difference is the file size. Once the file gets above 10 or
12 MB on a Mac, things start to slow down quite a bit.

If you run in Normal View, things will speed up dramatically. Normal View
is a non-WYSIWYG view that is designed to save power: it does!

Learn to use Linked pictures. Pull those graphics out, and re-insert them,
this time using Insert>Picture>From file... Check the "Link to file"
checkbox and uncheck the "Embed in document" checkbox on that dialog. This
dramatically reduces your file size because the pictures remain as external
files.

Before deciding to use Master Documents, read this:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/WhyMasterDocsCorrupt.htm

Me, I wouldn't Chop your document into separate files instead. But if
you can manage to use Linked Graphics, your problem will go away!

Cheers

I¹m running Mac OS 10.3.9 with 540 mb ram, Word 2004

Word is always extremely slow in basic editing operations like scrolling,
deleting, etc.

My document is rather long (200+ pages + graphics), but I did not have this
problem with Word 10 and Panther. After installing Tiger, I began having a
problem. Going back to Panther and Word 2004 did not solve the problem.

I have tried many things including helpful suggestions on this newsgroup, and
spoken at length with MS tech support for many months. For example, I¹ve
renamed the normal.dot, repaired disk permissions etc.

Someone suggested using Master/subdocuments, but so far I have not tried this.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Ken C.

--

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 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Ken Chandler]

Hi John,

Thanks so much for your suggestions. I am trying them out now in my
little spare time, and I will get back to you with a post. This problem has
persisted a long time through many hours of Word tech support, so if you can
help resolve it, I will be very grateful.

Cheers,

Ken

 

[Ken Chandler]

Hi John,

I am finding the same problem of slowness when I open the documents (long
and short) in a powerbook with 1 GB of ram.

A question about eliminating the last paragraph mark and copying to a new
file. Does one eliminate the last paragraph mark in the footnotes or in
the main text? A crucial question. Also, does one eliminate the last mark
in normal or page view?

Thanks and Cheers,

Ken

 

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

Hi Ken:

The last paragraph mark in the "Document"...

The paragraph mark actually has nothing to do with it, it's just a target
that shows you where to aim The property container you are attempting
to leave behind is after the last paragraph mark, at the bottom of the
document.

It's not part of the text, you can't see it or select it. But it's the one
that holds all of the settings for the document, and quite a lot of other
stuff that can get corrupted.

Did you say "Footnotes"?? If you have been vigorously editing a document
full of footnotes, and particularly if you have been adjusting the footnote
numbering, that could be the cause of your problem, and copying all but the
last paragraph mark into a new document would be the best cure. Check the
footnote numbering when you do: if it was corrupt, it may change when you
paste.

It doesn't matter which View you do this in, but it's easier to see what
you're doing in Normal view.

Slowness with a short document (small file) should not be happening with 1GB
of RAM. Not even on a power book (this is an iBook, and it's a slug, but
it's not that slow...)

Let's talk about your hard disk... How full is it? How long since you ran
a Repair Disk Permissions? How long since you emptied the trash? If you
are using File Vault, how long since you "Reclaimed Space". How long since
you rebooted the machine? Rebooting causes UNIX to do all sorts of
house-keeping.

How many fonts do you have loaded? Are you using a font manager? What
other applications are running? Which Antivirus are you running?

There's a problem: but maybe we have to look outside of Word to find it...

Hope this helps

Hi John,

I am finding the same problem of slowness when I open the documents (long
and short) in a powerbook with 1 GB of ram.

A question about eliminating the last paragraph mark and copying to a new
file. Does one eliminate the last paragraph mark in the footnotes or in
the main text? A crucial question. Also, does one eliminate the last mark
in normal or page view?

Thanks and Cheers,

Ken

--

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 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Ken Chandler]

I have now reinstalled Word X and the problem with extreme slowness in Word
went away. The problem was that Word X document did not work once I
installed Tiger, and that even going back to PANTHER did not solve it once I
had installed Word 2004. Apparently Word 2004 does not work with some
documents created in Word X.

My heartfelt thanks to John McGhie for many useful suggestions. I have
followed them and learned much, but finally, the solution has appeared. The
extreme pathological slowness in Word (up to fifteen seconds to scroll up or
down or delete a word) was not due to anything but Word 2004. The problem
began when I installed Tiger, and from that moment on I had the sick
slowness in Word documents. I thought the fix would be to install Word 2004,
but that did not fix it. So I went back to Panther, and still the problem
persisted. Only when I reinstalled Word X with Panther did the problem go
away, and now I find that Word X also works with Tiger. Something at
Microsoft has not allowed a continuous flow of the Word X document into
Tiger and Word 2004.

So again, thanks to the good support by John and others on this site, I am
wiser and able to function again with my documents.

Ken

 

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

Hi Ken

Sorry, but you haven't found the problem yet You may have "eliminated"
it, but you haven't found it...

Word 2004 is a little quicker on Tiger than Word X is. Word X will give the
appearance of being quicker, because it's doing less. It calls the old
QuickDraw mechanism to draw its screens instead of the new ATSUI routines.
QuickDraw is a light-weight technology that works well for the Apple
Macintosh character set, but it can't handle Unicode.

Similarly, Word X uses the old request queue, which enables user input to
interrupt Word more directly, giving the appearance of a more responsive
program. The reality is that Word 2004 interrupts more gracefully, enabling
the system to get more work done.

However, if you run a stopwatch on the two on the same document, Word 2004
is slightly faster.

So whatever the problem was, it's in a part of the system that Word X
doesn't use. But if it wasn't there, Word 2004 would be faster, more
stable, and give you your long file names and Unicode fonts back

Cheers

I have now reinstalled Word X and the problem with extreme slowness in Word
went away. The problem was that Word X document did not work once I
installed Tiger, and that even going back to PANTHER did not solve it once I
had installed Word 2004. Apparently Word 2004 does not work with some
documents created in Word X.

My heartfelt thanks to John McGhie for many useful suggestions. I have
followed them and learned much, but finally, the solution has appeared. The
extreme pathological slowness in Word (up to fifteen seconds to scroll up or
down or delete a word) was not due to anything but Word 2004. The problem
began when I installed Tiger, and from that moment on I had the sick
slowness in Word documents. I thought the fix would be to install Word 2004,
but that did not fix it. So I went back to Panther, and still the problem
persisted. Only when I reinstalled Word X with Panther did the problem go
away, and now I find that Word X also works with Tiger. Something at
Microsoft has not allowed a continuous flow of the Word X document into
Tiger and Word 2004.

So again, thanks to the good support by John and others on this site, I am
wiser and able to function again with my documents.

Ken

--

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 (0) 4 1209 1410