Excel 2008 is painfully, nearly unusably slow w/charts

[jopearl]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel I recently upgraded and am finding the new version simply awful to use. Doing simple things -- creating a very basic line chart, for example -- can take forever; I get the spinning beach ball half the time I make a chart. (I'm talking with a 60Kb file!)

Editing charts' titles is even more laborious -- the text takes forever to appear, and editing it is a nightmare.

I also find that the chart functionality is, well, not so functional. Things I did regularly in Excel 2004 don't work very well, like adding a series to an existing chart, and it's difficult to reorient a chart's data to go from rows to columns.

I have a 2.16-GHz MacBook running 10.5.8, with 2 GB of RAM. I have Excel 12.2.1. I'd appreciate any help you can offer, as I'm about to junk the whole thing and go back to Excel 2004.

 

[shahroozohio]

I have suffered from the same issues that you've raised plus more! I've raised the same issues a number of times on this forum, and sent MANY comments/complaints to Microsoft. Apparently, this is a known issue, but nobody seems to care about fixing this major shortcoming. I've had to use Excel 2004 and in several cases use Excel 2003 on Parallels.

I certainly hope that this issue is resolved in 2010/2011.

Keep posting your frustrations with Excel 2008. I hope that somebody is listening to our cries for help!

 

[XinXin]

Hi, could you please try the steps in this KB to see whether it can resolve the performance issue. There a few things described in this KB that may help: (1) Update to the latest version 12.2.3, (2) Run repair permission, and (3) Use safe mode to boot XL and Mac. Please report back.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979949

Thanks,
XinXin Liu
Macintosh Business Unit, Microsoft

 

[shahroozohio]

Thanks for you reply. I have the latest version of Excel running on Mac OS X (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of memory). I also did the steps discussed in the KB. However, Excel's "endless" spinning pinwheel keeps me entertained while I am trying to generate a simple x-y plot from the data in a file containing about 12000 rows and 8 columns. Excel's performance is NOT acceptable. Why is it so slow? I can open the same file on Excel 2003 via Parallels with no performance issues.

I strongly believe that there is a major performance issue in Excel 2008 that needs to be addressed.

PLEASE get to the bottom of this problem that has haunted me and other users since Excel 2008's release.

Thanks!

 

[jenkinstoby]

too have the same issue. No one on discussion forums or here seems to have cracked it.

all imacs are now redundant because excel doesn't work.

we need help! is anyone in microsoft working on this?!!!!

 

[Jim Gordon Mac MVP]

/too have the same issue. No one on discussion forums or here seems to
have cracked it./

all imacs are now redundant because excel doesn't work.

we need help! is anyone in microsoft working on this?!!!!

How many data points are in these charts?

Have you installed the latest Office and Mac OS updates?

-Jim

 

[XinXin]

Hi, do you mind sending me ([email protected]) your workbook? I'd like to see what the performance is of workbook on my machine.

Thanks,
XinXin Liu
Macintosh Business Unit, Microsoft

 

[John McGhie]

Yes! XinXin is currently working on it: send him a sample

too have the same issue. No one on discussion forums or here seems to have
cracked it.

all imacs are now redundant because excel doesn't work.

we need help! is anyone in microsoft working on this?!!!!

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

 

[Jean-Francois GAUTHIER]

Not to my credit, but i found this in another forum and you will LOVE it!

the 2 solutions that seem to accelerate my Excel 12.2.7 on Mac OS 10.6.4 which crashed regularly when I tried any large action on a large sheet were:
1) removing recent files
2) Font App: resolving duplicates: Mac and Office both have their own version of Arial, which made Excel spin to a stall and/or crash.

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/35416479/excel-2008-on-macbook-air-extremely-slow.aspx

"Try running the OS X app Font Book & using the Validate Fonts & Resolve Duplicates routines. Shut
down for a minute or two & see if things improve after restarting.

It may also help to go to View> Customize Toolbars & Menus & clear the check
for "Show typefaces in font menus".

Also, if you are not already doing so, do most of your work in Normal view.
Page Layout View consumes a lot of overhead & interaction with the printer
subsystem. Use it sparingly.

Additionally, in Excel Preferences:

Make sure Save AutoRecover Data is set for no more frequently than every 10
minutes,

Turn off Provide Feedback with sound,

Limit the number of recently used files (or turn off altogether),

Turn off Provide Feedback with Animation as well as the Paste & Insert
Options Smart Buttons.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac"