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Office 2011 - It's still S-L-O-W?!

I got my MacBook Pro on the weekend and installed Office 2011. At first it was great; really fast and efficient. I have now noticed that Word in particular has got really slow. I don't know why it has happened all of a sudden! I haven't tried any of the other Office suite yet to see if that is slow.

So what is causing Word/ Office to be so slow?? :confused:
 
Word, Excel, and PowerPoint all open within one bounce on my MBA. iWork apps, not so much. They take a few bounces to open completely.
 
using a mac mini late 2009 with 4GB ram and seagate momentus XT it takes 2/3 bounces the first time and less than 1 bounce to reopen the app
 
Office 2011 Slow on MacBook Air 11"?

On this theme:

Has anyone noticed if Office (esp powerpoint and word) are slow on an MBA 11" (1.6 4GB). I don't mean in boot up, but in operation is you use, say track chnages (esp commenting).......

This leads to a second or two of typing lag. These are not huge documents either.:eek:

thanks
 
pceew said:
On this theme:

Has anyone noticed if Office (esp powerpoint and word) are slow on an MBA 11" (1.6 4GB). I don't mean in boot up, but in operation is you use, say track chnages (esp commenting).......

This leads to a second or two of typing lag. These are not huge documents either.:eek:

thanks
Click to expand...

I am noticing the same issue you describe.
 
Glad to see this thread and happy to put in my 2c worth out of keen interest.

My background is pure DOS/Windows, CPM and various Unix flavours.
Until the past year, I was not a Mac convert.... although OS X's use of BSD did sparc an interest.

As far as Word and Office.... I started with Word 4.0 back in 1985 (non Windowed), and used every GUI version up to the current 2010. Primarily Word/Excel.

As far as Mac's go... I haven't been impressed with Office. But the general OS and system design would have one think that Microsoft certainly has the richer and more environment in a Mac in which to run their product.

Bottom line though is....

Which platform would Microsoft want to have their premiere app run better on?
a) Their own OS
OR
b) Apple's OS

----

Running other apps side by side (from companies with no invested interests), I have been surprised by results. Generally speaking, my Apple apps run much faster and more stable than my Windows versions.

Even more striking is that recently I compared World of Warcraft on my 2GHz Macbook Air versus my 9 fan, 3GHz beastly PC desktop running with very optimal components. I was blown away to see both achieve similar performance.

--------

As far as Office on the Mac. I thought the versions I've seen prior to 2011 have been shot. Pathetic versions when put beside their Windows counterparts.

But 2011 has won me over. It runs rings around my 2010 on Windows (Running Windows 7 on Xeon's on this box with 4GB of RAM). The execution time on Windows is faster, but using the product feels a lot faster on the Mac.

I don't think execution time is anything to go on, because a lot of stuff is unfortunately pre-loaded on the Windows box that I find is a complete waste of resources (especially when I am not interested in running Office during a particular boot)

Remove the pre-load stuff and Windows has the edge slightly.

---------

Now to actual benchmarking............

Anyone thought of comparing using timex from a terminal window?

It would be great to see timings on startups using something more measurable than a bounce.

I'll do this when I am in front on my MacBook Air or iMac, but typical commands for a fair comparison would include:

% uname -a
(summary of machine)

% timex <full path command>
(List a timing of how long command takes to run)

% top -l 1
(one page of top - including Office)

Happy to run this on both of my Macs. Hard to do it on Windows given DOS's brain dead prompt.
 
Pretty Slow

i used 2004 for ages and just switched to 2011 on my 2.53Ghz Unibody. it is definitely much slower than 2004. Microsoft's key selling point for this was that they had finally got it right!

i seriously considered going back to 2004. im not a programmer but how can MS find it such a task to make a word processor run smoothly on machines with this kind of spec?
 
Office has its problems, but speed is better

On my 2009 15" 2.53Ghz with a 7,200 rpm drive, first start up of Word takes 7 bounces, a short wait and then the file slides up. Quit Word and start up the same file, less than one bounce, almost to fast to see, posh it's up and running.
So I concur with the poster above, you probably have some issue in the system, HD directory fragmentation, or the like that is causing the issue.:eek:
What HD do you have, Seagate, Hitachi, etc.?
Have you tried booting up from the Install DVD and repairing the HD using Disk Utility or better yet, run Disk Warrior on the internal drive while booted up from an external HD?
You did say your disk is 80% full too, which may be causing the drive to take some time to search for the file, especially if the file is fragmented. Try temporarily freeing up some more space?
This is a difficult issue to sort out, will probably take some experimentation.
Good luck, and enjoy your new Mac! Don't let MS spoil the usually excellent user experience. :cool::apple::cool:
 
roadbloc said:
That is exactly the reason why I now use my copy of Office 2008 as a cup coaster and I now use iWork 09.

It is also the reason I stopped using MSN and went on to AIM using iChat.

M$ products on a Mac have always been rather shoddy I'm afraid.
Click to expand...


+1 I LOVE iWork and use it for all my classes. My office 2008, not so much.

As for Office 2011 though, I installed the trial, updated it, and had to use it for one of my classes for Excel. Needless to say I am SO glad I'm a save whore since after 12 hours in a spreadsheet Excel crashed for no reason and MS was unable to recover the spreadsheet. I only lost about 30 seconds of work so no biggie.

I used Office 2011 on the mac pro in my sig. It runs much better then 2008 (MUCH better) but I still prefer Apple's iWork. Its just easier and more intuitive for me. I don't have major office software needs.

That being said though Microsoft does listen to feedback and I've even seen them posting help for people on the Mac Rumors forums (yes really) so if you experience problems make sure to let them know.
 
Last edited:
It's really slow for me, i hate using it. I have an i5 4GB MBP and it's the slowest app i have installed, everything else is nice and speedy.

I installed a couple of fonts the other day and office took 5 minutes to 'rebuild the font menu'.. i had someone waiting for a document i felt like an idiot waiting 5 minutes for office to load on a £1500 computer.

I've resorted to using iWork 30-day trial (refusing to buy it at the min because i know iWork '11 is round the corner)... I absolutely love Keynote it makes Powerpoint look very amateur-ish. I haven't taken to Pages yet but i'm sure it will grow on me, and haven't tried Numbers. When i buy it i plan to completely switch and just use office for legacy docs.
 
chrono1081 said:
That being said though Microsoft does listen to feedback and I've even seen them posting help for people on the Mac Rumors forums (yes really) so if you experience problems make sure to let them know.
Click to expand...

I think you're referring to "nadyne" who answered a couple questions here months ago....she doesn't work for Microsoft any more (hasn't for months) and no one else has stepped up and taken over answering anything here.
 
blesscheese said:
Gee, does the problem go away when you quit MS Word and use OpenOffice? :)

My $.02: The last, best version of Word was 5.1 & it has been downhill (slowly, but surely) ever since.

Ok, rant over.
Click to expand...

The lagging seems to be related to a file that I already know is insanely complex. On other files, everything is fine.
 
it could be that you WYSIWYG font menus and the project gallery on, this significantly slows up start up and the font menu slows performance as well if you have a lot of fonts.

So

• launch word
• then Go to Word>Preferences
• click on 'General'
• uncheck 'WYSIWYG font menus'
• uncheck 'Project Gallery'
Then quit word and reopen it
 
I use Office 2011, and think its a hell of a lot better then iWork.
iWork really needs an upgrade now!
 
Ifti said:
I use Office 2011, and think its a hell of a lot better then iWork.
iWork really needs an upgrade now!
Click to expand...
As difficult as this is for some people are to get their heads around the concept, iWork is not and never has been a competitor for Office. If iWork better fits your needs, then your needs are very different than those of the typical Office user--and vice-versa. Do not expect iWork to ever become Apple Office.
 
roadbloc said:
That is exactly the reason why I now use my copy of Office 2008 as a cup coaster and I now use iWork 09.

It is also the reason I stopped using MSN and went on to AIM using iChat.

M$ products on a Mac have always been rather shoddy I'm afraid.
Click to expand...

Yes, I agree. Bt alas it is hardly a surprise.
 
To the OP... are you frequently activating/deactivating fonts, and do you have a huge pile of fonts active? Every recent version of Office will rebuild its font database on launch if the available fonts have changed, and that rebuild can take quite a long time if you have a ton of fonts.

I've never used Office 2011 on a machine without a SSD, but on my SSD-equipped machines it is impressively quick and much more responsive than 2008. Fresh boot happens in 1-2 bounces as long as the fonts haven't changed.
 
Excel 2011 painfully slow

After hours of trying to fix this I started in Safe Boot Mode and guess what Excel is super fast. Checked Activity Monitor in safe mode and in normal mode and made a list of all activity that was different! Eventually it came down to FMCore - in other words Fusion 3 Core. Stopped the core and Excel is now as it should be! This issue strangely didn't affect Word or PowerPoint.
I am running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and the latest version of Fusion 14.0.6. So until Extensis fix this I will not/cannot use font management - ok I suppose I could use Font Book.
 
Constipated Software!!!

Love my new 15" MBP, 2Ghz, i7 quad core, 8GB memory. It's fast, and it's not Microsoft. I own Office on Windoze, and also iWork for Mac. Reluctantly, I put Office 2011 on my Mac, since iWork Numbers is a VERY far cry from an actual spreadsheet application such as Excel. Big mistake. Like all Micros**t software, Office 2011 for Mac is Godawful SLOW with practically each and every task performed getting a spinning colorwheel whilst I wait (and wait, and wait) instead of being productive. I look forward to iWork maturing a bit and becoming a viable alternative to Office.
 
Word 2011 opens quicker for me when double clicking an existing document than Pages does, so I have no issues with performance.

Would one be called cynical for saying that it is perhaps not in Microsoft's best interest to make software for Macs run as quick as its equivalents for Windows...?
 
I've found Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to be fastER than 2008 (not fast, just faster).

Outlook, however, is unbelievable--especially considering it's supposedly pure Cocoa programming. A cold start of Outlook takes literally about 30+ seconds on my not-slow MacBook Pro. This is completely unacceptable, and reminds me of using WordPerfect 6 on Windows 95 back in the day.
 
Office 2004 on a 466MHz G4 running Leopard launches faster than my 2GHz Core Duo iMac running Snow Leopard and Office 2011. Food for thought.
 
Now that Lion has forced me to use Office 2011, I do concede that launching and opening are faster. However, why is the interface so clunky. Why is scrolling so much slower than in 2004 running under Rosetta? Particularly in Excel, which is the only app I voluntarily use.

Also, I hope they fix some of the visual and window-size glitches that seem to occur under Lion. (Perhaps they've always been there as I never spent very long with the awful ribbon in SL). Also as someone with a lot of legacy documents, I get several dialogue boxes whenever I open or save a file. I wish I knew how to turn all of these off. .xls or .xlsx or .xlsm, I still get warnings about something...

I'm still irritated that they claim it was "built from the ground up" yet they chose to include a link-related bug/flaw they acknowledged to me in 2004, along with many barely changed dialogues from Office X.
 
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