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Office:Mac 2008 = slow

ok, now, lets make it clear, is this leopard related?

any Tiger user find it slow with >1G ram?
 
I think things speed-up after a reboot. I installed Office tonight and I got the 10 secs estimate from that, after installing and not rebooting. To take the timings I rebooted then timed each app, things were faster for sure. There is no way Office 2008 is slower than Office 2004 on my machine.
 
It is about the same speed on my machine as Office 2004 was. I quite like the extra features though. Overall I am happy

1.83Ghz Intel
17"
Core duo
2GB RAM
 
clevin said:
1. you can not compare mac:eek:ffice and windows:eek:ffice

2. 2003 is very different than 2008.

3. all programs ask for more memory than 5 years ago, it is expected.
Click to expand...

1. In some sense, you can. They serve ALMOST the same functions.

2. Comparison is done on current computer.

3.If they serve similar functions and look similar, why does newer have to be drastically slower? Besides, we are talking about an up-to-date system with 4 gigs of RAM, yet it chokes on something a Pentium 3, 500mhz machine with 256 megs of ram could do on XP. Maybe we should question these things, or atleast have the option of having a slimmed down version.. incase you just want to do normal accounting/financial spreadsheets.
 
Same slow here. I'm with a macbook C2D (late 2006) with 2GB Ram, 10.5.1. Word loads in about 60 seconds, same time for excel. I don't know what to to. I've checked permission but nothing changed... :confused:
 
murex said:
Same slow here. I'm with a macbook C2D (late 2006) with 2GB Ram, 10.5.1. Word loads in about 60 seconds, same time for excel. I don't know what to to. I've checked permission but nothing changed... :confused:
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i have a mb cd 2ghz 2gig and its about the same as v.x when starting up initially whihc is a while maybe 10-15sec ish. however, after closing and then reopening its like 3-5sec to open which is good i suppose

overall no complaints on my ened
 
jfremani said:
Maybe we should question these things, or atleast have the option of having a slimmed down version.. incase you just want to do normal accounting/financial spreadsheets.
Click to expand...

There's one already, it's called iWork. :)
 
I have a MB Core 2 Duo 2Ghz w/ 2GB RAM and opening is faster than 2004 but still not as fast as I hoped. Overall, I like the new software.

EDIT:
I just tried 2008 after a reboot and it takes ~30 seconds to open the first time and ~5 seconds to open the second time. 2004 took ~23 seconds to open the first time and ~4 seconds to open the second time. I would say there is an issue since 2008 is a UB and 2004 uses Rosetta.
 
jfremani said:
Ok, let me ask this: I'm used to XP where installing and uninstalling applications causes eventual slowdowns and registry bloat. Is there any harm in removing Office:mac 2008 and then reinstalling again, over it? So far, these macs seem to be just as fast as when they were brand new, dispite all the new installs of apps.
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No registry bloat with macs, in OS X, as long as you have enough harddrive space you can install a million apps on the mac and it will not slow down significantly due to number of installed apps. (well, as long as they are normal apps, not system modifications or data processing apps that run in the background).

If you uninstall apps, typically some very small files are left behind, including preference files. These are handy to have around, in case you install the apps again, typically your settings are retained. You can get rid of those preference files and other stuff too if you want, there are a few threads on apps that helps with uninstalling applications and all associated files.
 
Thanks for the information, Consultant. We are trashing Office 2008 though. Apparently, it does not support data analysis tool packs or basic regression functions needed by our work and also for my classes. How strange.
 
KING OF BLOATWARE: Office 2008, Benchmark on MBP 2.4ghz

MBP 17" C2D Santa Rosa 2.4ghz 4gb RAM, 5400rpm 160gb drive with 108 gb mac partition that has 40gb free, 10.4.11
Launching time is the time it takes after opening the app to when a new document screen comes up. Actually it would be another second or two before input is possible into the documents.

Install.
Repair permissions.
All apps opened once (to make sure Office installs anything needed for first install), then rebooted.

Reboot, wait a few minutes
- First launch Word = 21 seconds
- Quit first app, launch Word or Excel = 4 seconds

Reboot, wait a few minutes
- First launch Excel = 15 seconds
- Quit first app, launch Word = 11 seconds
- Then Launch Excel = 2 seconds

Reboot, wait a few minutes
- First launch PowerPoint = 20 seconds
- Quit first app, launch Word = 9 seconds
- Quit, launch Word = 3 seconds

Word takes the longest to load the first time after reboot. Although the longest load time only happens once after reboot, it still takes way too long...

Comparison with other apps, each is the first launch time after reboot
- Word 2008 = 22 seconds
- Photoshop CS3 = 25 seconds
- Word 2004 = 30 seconds
- iWork '08 / Pages = 8 seconds
- iWork '08 / Numbers = 8 seconds
- iWork '08 / Keynote = 12 seconds
(I am real curious on how long it will take to load Halo and start playing)...

Tip: after launching an app that takes awhile to load, I typically switch to my emails or some other app while the app loads. (Easy to do on the Mac, on PC it's possible if you don't have alot of things open, otherwise it gets real slow).

Looks like MS translated their Vista efficiency to Office 2008 for Mac. Why does Word take almost same amount of time to launch as photoshop?
 
Its not THAT slow, but its slightly slower opening up than Photoshop, Flash etc...

Photoshop opens up in about 1.5 seconds for me. Took around 30-40 secs on my old PC.
 
Mac. said:
Its not THAT slow, but its slightly slower opening up than Photoshop, Flash etc...

Photoshop opens up in about 1.5 seconds for me. Took around 30-40 secs on my old PC.
Click to expand...

Laptop drives are slower than desktop drives so it will take longer to load.
 
It's not exactly zippy, but I can live with the speed of loading on my MBP 2.3 w/ 2GB RAM

The main thing I wanted was scroll speed and overall performance within the apps to improve, which they have now that it is a universal binary.

However, I have encountered an enormous omission in Excel2008 for me. It no longer supports custom error bars in charts. This renders the program almost useless for scientific charting. While I use GraphPad's Prism for formal graphs, I like to use Excel for quick, internal graphs. That decision by MS is moronic, at best.
 
Azadre said:
For reference, I consider 10 seconds slow. I can open Word 2007 on my Vista side and it opens in about 2 seconds. 10 seconds to open a simple program like a word processor or browser is a long time.
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That is because of a feature in vista, not office per se. They pre-launch programs so that they open faster on first click.

This happens in the Mac too, on the second open of an app in a session it is much faster.

They are big applications, with tons of features, and the ability to deal with tons of situations that users throw at it.

For many word processing situations it is too big. Especially for small one off stuff, that is why you should have little tiny word processor for such things.

When you are going to sit down and get some bigger work done, 10 seconds is seriously a bit of a whine.
 
Does this mean that Microsoft Office is slowly but surely going down the drain and will be steadily losing its market share?
 
It seems that the only major remaining stronghold of the Office is the advanced capabilities of Excel. Unfortunately, there is no real alternatives to those. There are also some obscure functions in Word that can not be well recapitulated by the alternatives, but those do not seem to be as critical and are also expected to be incorporated into their future incarnations.
 
Its very slow, but seem more stable than 2004

my word times..

iMac G5 2.0 512MB Ram 10.5.1 - hardly high end

time is from clicking icon until floating tool pallette is visible

initial word load - 39 seconds
second attempt - 12 seconds

for a 2 1/2 year old system with little ram its not much slower at loading word than current intels, MS must have screwed up somewhere on the intel side.

Bye
 
xUKHCx said:
30 seconds :eek:

I get less than 1 second startup time and it is very quick generally. I'd suggest reinstalling as something is defo wrong there.
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On my MacBook Pro (2.4 Ghz with 4 GB of Ram and 256 MB video card) Word 2008 takes 24.9 seconds to open the first time (after reboot), versus 8.1 seconds for Word 2004. Opening Word 2008 a second time takes 4.3 seconds, versus 5.8 for World 2004. However, once in the program it is noticeably faster. I can't imagine that yours would be any faster.
 
alFR said:
There's one already, it's called iWork. :)
Click to expand...

As someone who's never used iWork, and as someone who uses the most basic Excel and Word features, is it really a viable alternative to switch?

Can PC users open iWork doc files in Word? What are the drawbacks?

Thanks
 
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