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damiensmunki · Jul 29, 2004, 11:34 PM

Hi! I'm trying the demo version of Office 2004, and I love it. However, Word seems to lag a bit when I'm typing...and as I'm typing this, I'm noticing a bit of lag in this browser, though in Word, it's very severe. It seems that I can type faster than the computer can handle. I have 256 MB of RAM, and I would have thought this would be enough for simple word processing. Will adding more RAM increase the computer's ability to handle faster typing? I just never would have imagined that 256 MB wouldn't be enough to run Word, but I'm a recent convert, and It seems that OSX requires more of one's resources. Thanks!
Rob

Catfish_Man · Jul 29, 2004, 11:40 PM

Originally posted by damiensmunki:
Hi! I'm trying the demo version of Office 2004, and I love it. However, Word seems to lag a bit when I'm typing...and as I'm typing this, I'm noticing a bit of lag in this browser, though in Word, it's very severe. It seems that I can type faster than the computer can handle. I have 256 MB of RAM, and I would have thought this would be enough for simple word processing. Will adding more RAM increase the computer's ability to handle faster typing? I just never would have imagined that 256 MB wouldn't be enough to run Word, but I'm a recent convert, and It seems that OSX requires more of one's resources. Thanks!
Rob

Office is a huge resource hog (which is one reason I avoid it when possible). Try turning off live word count, that often helps. More ram is unlikely to help (unless Word uses more ram than I think it does), it seems like it should be mostly processor speed dependent. If it is running out of ram though, that can definitely cause lag.

FBill · Aug 1, 2004, 08:25 PM

I have noticed the same thing. I find it very annoying since it gives poor feedback and makes typing annoying.
It seems like it can't keep up with my slow typing speed!

It can be reproduced by typing the same letter over and over. As the speed of typing increases, the cursor lags behind, making the progress across the line very jerky.

I have 1.2 GHz iBook with 768 MB RAM, so I don't think more RAM will solve the problem.

I'm surprised that none of the reviewers of Word 2004 have mentioned this. Could it be that it doesn't happen to everyone, that there's a specific problem with our configurations?

torifile · Aug 1, 2004, 09:15 PM

Have you tried turning off sound effects? That and live word count appear to slow things down considerably. FWIW, I haven't had any significant lags on my rev. a 12". (This is with the full version of Office.)

monkeybrain · Aug 2, 2004, 04:40 AM

It happens on my dual 867 (with 768 ram) as well. It seems stupid to me that a word processor can lag like this when the latest games and huge programs like photoshop run fine.

I'll try turning off live word count, but that's annoying because I really like that feature.

FBill · Aug 2, 2004, 08:55 AM

" I'll try turning off live word count"

I was able to do that in Word v.10, and it did seem to help a little. But I can't see how to turn it off in Word 2004. Is it in preferences? The "Word count..." menu item under tools doesn't seem to have any choice for turning it off.

I'm interested to hear that someone has not noticed this problem. are you saying that if you type the same letter repeatedly the display keeps up without any lag?

monkeybrain · Aug 3, 2004, 05:09 AM

You can turn it off in Word 2004. In preferences it's under view I think, soemthing like 'View live word count'. That will remove it from the bottom of the window, so I guess it isn't counting anymore, although as normal with a microsoft program the option is very ambiguous.

I'm straining to see any big difference, the thing is just slow. I'm sure it wasn't this slow in the previous version.

RevEvs · Aug 3, 2004, 01:36 PM

Its slow even on a Dual G5... in general its just a laggy slow app

Photo678 · Aug 4, 2004, 10:46 PM

no lag here on a g4 ibook 800 with 640mb ram.

thats odd

also running 10.3.4

FBill · Aug 5, 2004, 09:07 AM

"no lag here on a g4 ibook 800 with 640mb ram.
thats odd
also running 10.3.4"

It is odd.

Do you mean that even if you type very fast the cursor keeps up with you? If so, I wonder what could explain the difference? The reports of lagging in text appearance on the screen are widespread, I've seen threads about it on this board and Macfixit and Macworld.

But if it's not universal could it be some software conflict?
Do you have text smoothing (anti-aliasing) turned off? What about spelling correction or word count?

I don't think it's processor speed or RAM or disk space. I have a much faster iBook, G4 1.2GHz with plenty of RAM and disk space and it's very easy for me to out-type Word.

Spheric Harlot · Aug 5, 2004, 11:10 AM

Just turned off auto-spell, auto-grammar, live word count, auto-substitution, and it actually runs rather nicely now on my 400 MHz G3 iMac.

I like lot bettah bettah to v. X.

Yes.

Photo678 · Aug 5, 2004, 11:12 AM

I have font smoothing on "strong" turned off for fonts smaller than 8.

I have tested all different font sizes in word, and still havent found any lag.

Auto word count, I cant seem to find an option for this. I have just gotten word 2k4 and just use it right out of the box, i havent changed anything in the preferences.

Still very odd that I would say. I did however notice this lag in appleworks, really bad, which is one of the reasons why i decided to pick up word

cpac · Aug 5, 2004, 11:24 AM

I have live word count turned off, but live spelling and grammar check on, and I experience no lag at all (whether typing fast or just doing the single letter thing as suggested above) on my TiBook 500/512.

You can turn off live word count in Preferences -> View

That said, 256 MB ram is a bit on the low end for OS X and any big app, including Office. I'd think about upgrading, at least a bit.

Otherwise, try using an alternative text program - one of the open office varieties, Nisus Writer Express (esp. when 2.0 is released in a bit), Mellel, or (as it can work for many things) just good old Text Edit

madmacgames · Aug 8, 2004, 11:40 PM

I noticed this today. I hadn't noticed it before in normal just text documents but today I was working on a project and after getting about 3 images put in, it slowed considerably. It is most terrible when typing beside a table and you the text set to wrap around the table, it gets bad and delay in typing and showing up on screen is horrible. Every-time I hit a key you can see it redraw the table and redraw the text around the table.

Excel is bad too and crashes every other time I try to make a chart out of a table of data.

LeeG · Jan 15, 2005, 05:07 PM

Well I hate to resurrect another thread, but I am having the same problem.

Word is grabbing every available proc cycle - I have turned off spelling, grammar, word count - I used it all day, without a prob, now this is going on - and its near unuseable.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Lee