Re: Has anyone noticed Word performance improvements with Tiger

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

Hi Daiya,

The link you posted didn't work but I found the article here
http://www.macobserver.com/columns/rantsandraves/2004/20040611.shtml

I'm going to give Matt's program a try. I know I could use more memory on my
Mac mini, but I have a G5 iMac with 1GB of RAM and that also bogs down in
the Word files. So I don't know that a memory boost is going to do very
much.

As I just mentioned in responding to Jeffrey's post, the frustrating thing
is that running Word on my old 933MHz Transmeta powered laptop with Windows
XP leaves the Mac in the dust. But only when running Word. For every other
program I've tried, the Mac responds faster - purely subjective measurements
of course.

Anyway, I hope the MacBU guys figure out how to make the Mac and Windows
performance more comparable. Until then I'll just be using Word with most of
it's functionality disabled.

All the best,

--
Nigel

Mac OS 10.3.9 ­ 1.42 Ghz PowerPC G4, 512 MB SDRAM
Microsoft Office 2004

http://www.parallelprose.com


On 6/7/05 7:41 AM, in article BECB0015.3291F%daiyaNOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
"Daiya Mitchell" <daiyaNOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi Nigel,
>
> Hmm. I was going to say I would expect degradation with 90pps of track
> changes balloons, but I did do 55 the other day, in page layout view with
> balloons, and I don't recall being unhappy. Probably only a few edits per
> page, though. Can't remember if that was before or after my memory
> upgrade--I think after.
>
> In general, Word 2004 has screen redraw problems. Anything that requires
> more complicated and more frequent screen refresh is going to take a toll on
> performance. Two of those things are certainly Page Layout View and Track
> Changes balloons, especially the balloons. Normal View is designed to be
> faster, especially by minimizing the need to redraw the screen. So
> everything you are seeing fits with the known issues/information. Hard to
> tell--"longer" is awfully vague--whether your problem is excessive.
>
> I believe slowness in Page Layout view is certainly related to the length of
> the document, because Word has to constantly repaginate and sort out where
> the page breaks will be, I think, so it is working much harder.
>
> I would say you are underpowered with 512MB RAM, though. Here's an article
> on memory.
> http://www.themacobserver.com/columns/rantsandraves/2004/20040611.shtml
> I was using the Memory Stick utility mentioned in it--it dings to tell you
> the memory is under stress. With 512MB of RAM, running usually Word,
> Safari, and Entourage, it was dinging *constantly*.
>
> Daiya
>
>
> On 6/6/05 10:38 PM, "Parallel Prose" wrote:
>
>> Hi Daiya,
>>
>> I don't think this issue is related to the size of a document.
>>
>> An email from John this morning, and your post from Friday, got me thinking
>> and I decided to do some experimenting. It didn't make sense to me that
>> neither of you were able to see the problem that so many other people have
>> reported.
>>
>> I've recently been editing a 90 page document. I have track changes switched
>> on but other functionality, like spelling and grammar checking, switched
>> off. I'm viewing the markup as I go - Final Showing Markup - in page layout
>> view.
>>
>> As I've been getting further into the document, piling up the edits, Word
>> has been taking longer and longer to redraw the screen whenever I change
>> text, cut and paste, or navigate around the document with either keyboard
>> shortcuts or the mouse. I'm about half way through the document and there
>> are a significant number of changes being tracked.
>>
>> As is my habit, I'm working in page layout view. After trying one or two
>> things I switched to normal view and noticed that the performance drag went
>> away immediately. I made some revisions and the performance improvement
>> seemed to be maintained.
>>
>> I went back to page layout and switched off "use balloons to display
>> changes" in the track changes preferences panel - this gives the same markup
>> display as in normal mode. This also improved the performance. I made some
>> more revisions with no noticeable degrading of performance.
>>
>> I then re-enabled the balloons - still in page layout view - and performance
>> is OK but then gradually degrades as I make revisions.
>>
>> So perhaps the screen redraw performance problem is related to those track
>> changes balloons.
>>
>> I personally prefer the way the markup looks with the balloons, but if it
>> makes the program useable I can live with the inconvenience of not using
>> them until there's a fix for the problem.
>>
>> I didn't make that many edits to the document during any of these tests, so
>> there is still a chance that the performance could degrade again as
>> revisions mount up. We shall see.
>>
>> All the best,
>



.

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