I've got a Revision A original MacBook with a CD 2.0ghz and 2GB of RAM. The initial load of Word took nearly 20 seconds, but subsequent loads after quitting come in under 5 seconds. That's pretty acceptable in my book.
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Office:Mac 2008 = slow
- Thread starter jfremani
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Took me about 25 seconds to load Word 08 fresh.
Although my Mac is lagging lately, I'm waiting for 10.5.2 to come out then I'm gonna wipe everything and start again.
I'm sure there's some hacks and crap I've installed that I've forgotten about and it is causing sluggishness.
But generally, it takes more than 15 seconds to load Word 08 for me.
Although my Mac is lagging lately, I'm waiting for 10.5.2 to come out then I'm gonna wipe everything and start again.
I'm sure there's some hacks and crap I've installed that I've forgotten about and it is causing sluggishness.
But generally, it takes more than 15 seconds to load Word 08 for me.
I haven't really played with it all that much, but Excel seems very sluggish. For example, I have a spreadsheet with several charts in it as separate sheets, and there is a noticeable lag when switching between the charts. No such delay in Excel 2004 for Mac or Excel 2003 for Windows. Bummer.
Excel data entry sloooooow
My problem - and I've seen some very faint echoes of it from other users - has to do with data entry. Excel can't keep up with my typing, and it's not that I'm pounding the keys in desperation. Quitting and restarting the app does not seem to help. It seems to be BETTER after a fresh machine restart, but eventually it goes back to doing what it did before. I've also tried turning off all the autocorrection, to no avail. I use a MBP 2.2Ghz with 4GB of RAM, so while I do have Parallels fired up, memory ought not be the problem here.
Anyone else with similar problems - or better, solutions?
My problem - and I've seen some very faint echoes of it from other users - has to do with data entry. Excel can't keep up with my typing, and it's not that I'm pounding the keys in desperation. Quitting and restarting the app does not seem to help. It seems to be BETTER after a fresh machine restart, but eventually it goes back to doing what it did before. I've also tried turning off all the autocorrection, to no avail. I use a MBP 2.2Ghz with 4GB of RAM, so while I do have Parallels fired up, memory ought not be the problem here.
Anyone else with similar problems - or better, solutions?
Can not be that FAST
Sorry, but these time that you are quoting here for 10.5.1 are not realistic, just because it does not run that fast. I have even tried it on Xserve core2due x2 with 4gb of RAM and you have same performance on FIRST start, any consequent start is 1-2 se max.
I guess this is just because, if you did not know Office for MAC have a daemon that is checking on network to see it others are running same program with with same ID. It does so for every application as you can easily install only Excel or Word without any other programs. You can try to install little snitch and check if Word for example is pinging on port 222 when starting.
Sorry, but these time that you are quoting here for 10.5.1 are not realistic, just because it does not run that fast. I have even tried it on Xserve core2due x2 with 4gb of RAM and you have same performance on FIRST start, any consequent start is 1-2 se max.
I guess this is just because, if you did not know Office for MAC have a daemon that is checking on network to see it others are running same program with with same ID. It does so for every application as you can easily install only Excel or Word without any other programs. You can try to install little snitch and check if Word for example is pinging on port 222 when starting.
Yes - Office 2008 is slow!
It is an accurate observation that office 2008 for mac is slow, so is office 2007 for xp - in comparison to older versions. Speed is relative and depends on your configuration, but in pretty much all cases the newer the MS application the slower it will run on your current system - unless you run the absolute latest processor and have a minimum of 2 GB RAM. Office is bloated with features 99% of us will never use.
And anyone who reports initial office boot times of about 1 sec is high on crack, you can't even get that on a dual processor server.
Solution: Unless you absolutely must use office to communicate within your company (Entourage etc) don't use it. Apples "pages", "Numbers" and "Keynotes" is a 100 times faster, easier to use yet full of advanced features and they read and can edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.
As an individual user not bound by company policies, it is idiotic to use Office way too expensive and full of nonsense.
It is an accurate observation that office 2008 for mac is slow, so is office 2007 for xp - in comparison to older versions. Speed is relative and depends on your configuration, but in pretty much all cases the newer the MS application the slower it will run on your current system - unless you run the absolute latest processor and have a minimum of 2 GB RAM. Office is bloated with features 99% of us will never use.
And anyone who reports initial office boot times of about 1 sec is high on crack, you can't even get that on a dual processor server.
Solution: Unless you absolutely must use office to communicate within your company (Entourage etc) don't use it. Apples "pages", "Numbers" and "Keynotes" is a 100 times faster, easier to use yet full of advanced features and they read and can edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.
As an individual user not bound by company policies, it is idiotic to use Office way too expensive and full of nonsense.
I was too lazy to read through the entire thread but for those of you that are still experiencing slow start up times with word.
How many fonts do you have? Try disabling 'WYSIWYG font and style menus' in preferences.
I think the reason it takes such a long time on its initial open (after a fresh install) is that it needs to go through your font collection and build a cache.
How many fonts do you have? Try disabling 'WYSIWYG font and style menus' in preferences.
I think the reason it takes such a long time on its initial open (after a fresh install) is that it needs to go through your font collection and build a cache.
I love pages. It has replaced Quark in my production of flyers, newsletters etc - however Numbers is still a bit alien and for straight word processing word is still the de facto standard. I'm holding off upgrading to 08 and this thread is prolonging that hold-off.
I think I would probably do without altogether if Pages had a 1 step save to .doc option. Call me lazy or obstinate but having to "export" to a word doc just doesn't cut it for me...
I think I would probably do without altogether if Pages had a 1 step save to .doc option. Call me lazy or obstinate but having to "export" to a word doc just doesn't cut it for me...
On my SR MBP (2.4 GHz, 4GB) running 10.5.2, it took:
6 seconds to load Word
6 seconds to load Excel
25 seconds to load PowerPoint
Word and Excel are quite fast. As for PowerPoint, it is a bit slow.
Just received and loaded my copy of 08 and I am not experiencing the same sluggishness as others. I am running the following:
C2D 2.16
4g ram
Leopard
PPT in about 17 sec.
Word in about 5 sec.
Excel in about 5 sec.
The new look is nice, i really like the change. I like the look of entourage as well...very pleased!
C2D 2.16
4g ram
Leopard
PPT in about 17 sec.
Word in about 5 sec.
Excel in about 5 sec.
The new look is nice, i really like the change. I like the look of entourage as well...very pleased!
Office 2008 is dog slow for me too on a Mac Pro 2.66, 5 GB RAM
and on my MBP 2.16 with 2 GB, it's excruciating. I kept 2004 on there as well, and usually launch it instead (plus I still use Endnotes for some things)
and on my MBP 2.16 with 2 GB, it's excruciating. I kept 2004 on there as well, and usually launch it instead (plus I still use Endnotes for some things)
Office 2008 is a disaster, if you ask me. We can only hope they will work on fixing it with updates.
Office 2004 was faster on my iMac 2.4 GHZ 3 GB RAM under Rosetta by a mile.
Strange enough, I wonder how universal Office 2008 is. My old Powerbook 1.5 GHZ G4 with 1.25 GB memory isn't much slower with office than the up to date iMac. Bizarre.
Unless you got Office 2008 via the free update program (like me) I wouldn't recommend it right now.
Office 2004 was faster on my iMac 2.4 GHZ 3 GB RAM under Rosetta by a mile.
Strange enough, I wonder how universal Office 2008 is. My old Powerbook 1.5 GHZ G4 with 1.25 GB memory isn't much slower with office than the up to date iMac. Bizarre.
Unless you got Office 2008 via the free update program (like me) I wouldn't recommend it right now.
Agreed. If you already have Office 2004, or even Office for windows running under parallels or vmware, then for word and excel, at least, there is no advantage to moving to Office 2008. Entourage may be another story.
I've been using iWork and NeoOffice on my Mac Pro, but when I got my Air, I wanted move to a single application to save disk space. I tried Office 2008 and I've got to say I'm very impressed with it - it loads quickly and runs like a charm.
I've got the 1.8SSD and all applications open in around 6.9 - 7.2 seconds after a fresh boot. Re-opening any app is under 3 seconds. Guess I'm really seeing the benefit of the SSD drive with this
I've got the 1.8SSD and all applications open in around 6.9 - 7.2 seconds after a fresh boot. Re-opening any app is under 3 seconds. Guess I'm really seeing the benefit of the SSD drive with this
Do you have a reference for this? Have MS announced anything?
Agreed, Office 2008 is unusable at the moment, so I do hope they're going to update it "real soon now". Stick with Office 2004, it's got better functionality, is more reliable, and to be honest, it seems faster.
It was posted on various websites about 2 weeks ago. Supposed to be some bug fixes. I think they said March 14 or March 12 or thereabouts.
Is that true? God. That is pathetic!
Piracy...there's only so much you can do. But the fact they prioritise tackling piracy over product performance..
You know what's funny? Compare the icons for Office 04 and 08. They've gotten significantly fatter. Someone's clever joke, I think.
I have a PowerBook and experience all these performance issues - basically unusable. I've tried loading office apps in the apple store - definitely significantly faster, like 4 sec to load Word, vs. 25 sec.
These apps are huge memory hogs and my machine with 1.25G of Ram slows to a crawl when they are open.
Another not so obvious performance hit - the new Office versions have a new backward incompatible file format and chances are if you are using office, you are using it to share docs and hence will stick with the old format. The rub is that these files are much slower to open and save. Saving a PPT in the old format is very, very slow.
I have a PowerBook and experience all these performance issues - basically unusable. I've tried loading office apps in the apple store - definitely significantly faster, like 4 sec to load Word, vs. 25 sec.
These apps are huge memory hogs and my machine with 1.25G of Ram slows to a crawl when they are open.
Another not so obvious performance hit - the new Office versions have a new backward incompatible file format and chances are if you are using office, you are using it to share docs and hence will stick with the old format. The rub is that these files are much slower to open and save. Saving a PPT in the old format is very, very slow.
