Speeding up text input in PowerPoint 2008

[Jeff_Chapman]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I've read several comments on this forum about the typing responsiveness of PowerPoint 2008, and I too have had problems with this. I currently have a 43-slide presentation, and I had been typing in text in outline mode. Things started to slow down to a crawl around, oh, maybe slide 35 or so. I'd type a few letters, wait for a moment, and finally the letters would appear on the screen.

The presentation is less than 2 MB in size, and I have 4 GB of RAM installed with a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, so I can't imagine that my MacBook Pro is at fault.

It got so bad that I finally decided to try my luck with PowerPoint 2007 via Parallels Desktop/Win Vista. Lo and behold, I found that the typing speeds were much faster there.

What I also found today, however, was that after I saved the presentation in PowerPoint 2007, shut down Parallels and then reloaded the presentation in PowerPoint 2008 for Mac, I experienced MUCH faster typing speeds. Still not quite as responsive as expected, but close.

Has anyone else ever experienced these issues, and what other fixes have you all tried? (I've read some previous posts on this issue, but there doesn't seem to be a convincing solution yet.) I'd hate to think that I have to boot up PowerPoint 2007 for Windows and edit the presentation there every time I want to do some serious text inputting...

Would appreciate any input on this!

Jeff

 

[PIX]

We recently upgraded to office 2008 on several Macs all of which have more than enough capacity and processing power (and are running OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and Powerpoint 2008 is a total disaster across computers and on my Macbook, so the problem has to be with the program. The problem also occurs on OS X 10.4 with Powerpoint 2008.

There is a huge time lag when typing, and when moving from slides to outline view causes a virtual freeze - you might as well go and do some chores while waiting. I have several times had to force quit. It is so slow and sluggish that it's simply not efficient to use it and is enormously frustrating and time consuming.

It is to the point that I am thinking of of uninstalling Office 2008 on my Mac and reverting to the 2004 version of Powerpoint which worked perfectly.
I too am seeking solutions as we require frequent use of powerpoint for our jobs. Thanks!
Pix

 

[Jeff_Chapman]

It's reassuring (?) to know that there are other people encountering the same problems, and that it's not just me...

Please, send feedback to Microsoft about this - the more people that complain, the more chance there is that this will be rectified!

As a side note, as I wrote, it seems to have helped sometimes to open the presentation in PPT 2007 for Windows, resave it, and then open it again in PPT 2008 for Mac. However, I can't pin down the causes and effects with 100% certainty.

Someone mentioned on a different post that turning off the "Track recently opened documents" in the Preferences - General pane may speed things up. I've tried this, but can't be sure that this has completely helped. You might want to give it a shot and see what you think.

Jeff

 

[PIX]

Hi, thanks for this reply. I tried removing the "track recently opened documents" in preferences to no avail.
I am perplexed that this problem, given how severe it is for us as to make working in PPT virtually impossible, is not more widely complained about. Can't understand it and have had a Mac expert from my university working on it but also with no solutions, except to suggest it's a bug with either or both Apple in the O/S or with Microsoft.
Please advise if you learn anything further and will do the same. Thanks!

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi, thanks for this reply. I tried removing the "track recently opened documents" in preferences to no avail.
I am perplexed that this problem, given how severe it is for us as to make working in PPT virtually impossible, is not more widely complained about. Can't understand it and have had a Mac expert from my university working on it but also with no solutions, except to suggest it's a bug with either or both Apple in the O/S or with Microsoft.
Please advise if you learn anything further and will do the same. Thanks!

Hi,

Since you seem to be having trouble with text, perhaps you have a font
problem. Use Font Book, an application already on your computer, to
validate fonts and font files. Font Book can resolve duplicate fonts and
help you eliminate bad fonts.

-Jim