Word and excel constantly giving me 10 - 30 seconds spinning beachballs

[phillman5]

Leopard 10.5.4, Word 12.1.2 (2008), 4 GB, fairly new machine 2.6GHz
Intel. Just doing simple things like selecting menus, copy small
amounts of text, going from one word document to another word
document, I am constantly getting a spinning beach ball that lasts 10
- 30 seconds. This seems to happen in both Word and Excel. What
gives? I tried Excel 2004 and did not have this problem at all with
the same document.

 

[MC]

Leopard 10.5.4, Word 12.1.2 (2008), 4 GB, fairly new machine 2.6GHz
Intel. Just doing simple things like selecting menus, copy small
amounts of text, going from one word document to another word
document, I am constantly getting a spinning beach ball that lasts 10
- 30 seconds. This seems to happen in both Word and Excel. What
gives? I tried Excel 2004 and did not have this problem at all with
the same document.

Take a look at your Save preferences. How often does Autosave run? If
it's 1 minute, that can cause this problem. Increase it to 5 minutes and
it might go away.

Of course, it could easily be something else altogether.