Charts in Excel Mac 2008 - Crashes with 'large' datasets

[Nick Bell]

Hi,

Excel Mac 2004 used to be able to plot 32,000 data point graphs without
difficulty. 2008 becomes unresponsive at around 3,000 (loud vacuum
cleaner sound from MacBook C2D with 2 gigs RAM). Anyone else having
similar problems? Happens with XY or line graphs.

Nick

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Hi,

Excel Mac 2004 used to be able to plot 32,000 data point graphs without
difficulty. 2008 becomes unresponsive at around 3,000 (loud vacuum
cleaner sound from MacBook C2D with 2 gigs RAM). Anyone else having
similar problems? Happens with XY or line graphs.

I just created a 5000 datapoint X-Y Scatter Chart with XL08 (MacBook Pro
2.4GHz, 4GB).

Not exactly snappy at 17 seconds, but not unresponsive, either.

 

[Nick Bell]

I just created a 5000 datapoint X-Y Scatter Chart with XL08 (MacBook Pro
2.4GHz, 4GB).

Not exactly snappy at 17 seconds, but not unresponsive, either.

Thanks - 5000 rows, 2 columns, chart in 10 seconds - but trying to edit
data source to change source data - beachballing ++

I was happy to put up with lack of VBA, but the lack of performance is a
distinct problem.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Thanks - 5000 rows, 2 columns, chart in 10 seconds - but trying to edit
data source to change source data - beachballing ++

For me the update takes about as long as the original time to create the
chart.

 

[Nick Bell]

For me the update takes about as long as the original time to create the
chart.

Beachballs for 1 minute just right clicking the chart, basically every
action triggers >1 minute pause. Not usable. Same data fine in 2004.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[Nick Bell]

Thanks - 5000 rows, 2 columns, chart in 10 seconds - but trying to edit
data source to change source data - beachballing ++

I was happy to put up with lack of VBA, but the lack of performance is a
distinct problem.

And it's near instant on OpenOffice 2.3 (which can also handle 35,000
rows and 3 columns). Oh dear.

 

[jpdphd]

And it's near instant on OpenOffice 2.3 (which can also handle 35,000
rows and 3 columns). Oh dear.

I know that this is a non-sequitur, but I just displayed a 1,000,000
point scatter plot using IgorPro 6 (WaveMetrics.com) in under 5
seconds. (PowerBook G4 1.5GHz, 2Gbyte). In my experience, Excel has
never been equipped to handle large data sets. (Excel is super for
many other things, though). My investments in IgorPro have been well
worth it!

 

[Nick Bell]

I know that this is a non-sequitur, but I just displayed a 1,000,000
point scatter plot using IgorPro 6 (WaveMetrics.com) in under 5
seconds. (PowerBook G4 1.5GHz, 2Gbyte). In my experience, Excel has
never been equipped to handle large data sets. (Excel is super for
many other things, though). My investments in IgorPro have been well
worth it!

Thanks, I had a look.

Back to Excel 2002 in Parallels. VERY fast. I'll probably use Word 2008
though, it's pretty nice.

 

[conr2286]

My XY Plot of 15589 rows and 2 columns requires minutes to respond to seemingly any change (including bringing up the initial chart) on my 2.67 gHz Mac Pro with 8 gB RAM.

This was not a problem in Excel 2004. So far I've tried recreating the chart from scratch and moving the workbook to the xlsx format (just in case compatibility required some unfortunate organization of the data).

Folks... this is unacceptable. Does anyone have a workaround?

JimC

 

[Nick Bell]

My XY Plot of 15589 rows and 2 columns requires minutes to respond to
seemingly any change (including bringing up the initial chart) on my
2.67 gHz Mac Pro with 8 gB RAM.

This was not a problem in Excel 2004. So far I've tried recreating the
chart from scratch and moving the workbook to the xlsx format (just in
case compatibility required some unfortunate organization of the data).

Folks... this is unacceptable. Does anyone have a workaround?

JimC

Exactly as I found.

I tried changing workbook formats too, it didn't help. Excel 2004 is
usable, 2008 just isn't. Feedback sent.

 

[Phillip Jones]

Are you using OSX.5 on a Intel Mac?

If so check to see if your running Excel2008 in Rosetta Mode or not. IF
so that slows down application operation considerably.

My XY Plot of 15589 rows and 2 columns requires minutes to respond to
seemingly any change (including bringing up the initial chart) on my
2.67 gHz Mac Pro with 8 gB RAM.

This was not a problem in Excel 2004. So far I've tried recreating the
chart from scratch and moving the workbook to the xlsx format (just in
case compatibility required some unfortunate organization of the data).

Folks... this is unacceptable. Does anyone have a workaround?

JimC

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[Nick Bell]

Are you using OSX.5 on a Intel Mac?

If so check to see if your running Excel2008 in Rosetta Mode or not. IF
so that slows down application operation considerably.

Activity monitor shows it running as an intel app.

 

[Mr.H]

The fact of the matter is that creating charts in Excel 2008 is current f**cked - it is unacceptably slow and totally unusable.

Anyone having these problems please send feedback to Microsoft (here: and hopefully it'll be one of the first things they work on fixing.