Word 2008 running at 80% CPU

[AQP88]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Word 2008 running at 85% CPU, I found in other forums, if I turn the Grammar Check off, the CPU goes back to normal, but it keeps with the same crazy fan issue. Help me please!! I hope there is a fix for it soon.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Can't remember where I picked this up, but in Preferences, turn off Live
Word Count is reported to reduce CPU wasted. Appears to work for me
(but have not done any real experiments to test ... last week the laptop
battery lasted while writing most of the the entire transatlantic
flight, so it must have worked).


--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[AQP88]

it did not work, still have the same issue!!! help please

 

[John McGhie]

You have not specified your update level, so we can't really answer this
because we don't have enough information.

Make sure you have applied all the latest updates to Mac OS X and to Office
2008.

Then see what the CPU usage is, after a reboot and with just the default
blank document open.

That will give us a good idea where to start.

Cheers

it did not work, still have the same issue!!! help please

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

 

[jwiedman]

I encountered a very similar problem. As always it is helpful to post a bit about your system and version of word to help folks out.

I'm on a 2.53 GHZ, 4 GB RAM, OS X 10.6.2, macbook pro running 12.2.4 of MS Word.

I was having huge issues with Word being laggy during typical daily use on simple 2 page word documents.

I tried these things:

- Turn off word count
-Turn off Grammar and Spell check
- Repair disk permissions

All the things folks were talking about in this forum.

Turns out - my problem was with fonts (an issue I'd had before and thought I'd solved).

Solution - Run OS X Font Book and ask it to Resolve Fonts. It turned off all the duplicate fonts - problem solved.

I hope this is helpful.

 

[abs]

I have become increasingly impatient with the long lags between entering a piece of text and it appearing on the screen, in cutting and pasting, in selecting all of the document,in modifying styles, in opening documents, and in scrolling through documents. This is to say nothing of the spinning beachball while it locates the required file using 'open recent'.

The documents I am working with are only of three or four pages in length. Editing them is incredibly frustrating because of the delays between keystroke and action.

I have a 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo intel mac, with 2.5 GB RAM running snow leopard (10.6.2) and Word 2008 with all updates (12.2.4).

Word 2008 is fine under Leopard, it only gives grief in snow leopard, when it takes up to 90% of CPU usage, with no other programs running.

I have removed live word count, grammar and spell checking as you type, resolved all duplicates in font book, run Disk Warrior, Techtool Pro and repaired disk permissions. The problem remains. It is marginally better when I do a complete restart.

Love to know what the problem is and a solution would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Rob Schneider]

I know it's not supposed to help; but for me after doing it Word works
better on my MacBook. Probably coincidence as this is a Mac, Windows,
after all. I used the un-install utility and then re-installed it.
Happier with how Word now performs. It was a real pig on the last
project done with it (40 page report).


--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

Could that be because your previous install was for PowerPC code and you
ended up using it in Rosetta mode which would cause the slow down and
when you reinstalled it only used the INtel code which runs native?

 

[Rob Schneider]

New machine (May 2009). Don't recall ever seeing any reference to
Rosetta or PowerPC. It just runs better now. Probably coincidence.


--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

Rosetta is the emulation system Apple uses to run PowerPC native
applications on the Intel only OSX.6 machine. If running in Rosetta mode
it, it slows everything down.

To see if running in Rosetta mode single Click on the application and
check to see if a check mark is shown next to the item Rosetta.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Far as I know, not applicable here.


--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[John McGhie]

Well, all I can say is that Word works fine here: it loads in less than a
second and uses 0.3% of the CPU.

If you would rather spend your good money to complain about Word, well,
whatever floats your boat.

However, the fact remains that your experience is not caused by "Word",
there is something on your system that is not right.

I need you to stop complaining and engage with the problem, so we can work
through the diagnostics needed to help you fix it.

Of course, it's only a suggestion...

Following the suggestions on the Apple forums I checked cpu usage of word when
Mail and Firefox were running together and separately. Word was marginally
faster if one or both of these programs were not operating.

I have just tried Word 2004 and it worked like a charm i.e as it should. Much
lower use of CPU, much zippier and much less frustration. Back to Word 2004
for me.

Bummer about having paid out good $$ for a program that doesn't work properly,
and I did like the softer interface.

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[Jim Gordon Mac MVP]

Reminds me very much of the Word 6 for mac debacle. It too was snail
like and Microsoft ended up continuing to sell Word 5 because Word 6 was
such a dog that no-one wanted to buy it.

If I recollect correctly, Word 6 also introduced a new file format
following an earlier introduction of a new Word for Windows format.

Hi

Word 6 ran better with more robust hardware than what was the average
for the time it was released.

Word 2008 runs like greased lightning on my G4 500mhz Titanium laptop,
which is considerably lighter duty hardware than the minimum system
requirements listed for the Office 2008, and is far lighter duty than
almost all the hardware now being used to run Office 2008.

So, as John pointed out, the problem almost certainly lies somewhere on
your system, not with Word.

There are many possible trouble-shooting steps you can take. Repairing
disk permissions, running a hard disk repair tool, removing duplicate
and corrupt fonts are some of the most common fixes. Have you tried any
of these steps? If so, which ones?

-Jim

 

[abs]

Word 2008 runs beautifully on my Powerbook G4 under Leopard, so you are right there. The problem is on my workhorse imac core2duo under OS10.6.2.

I think I have covered all suggestions made so far. I'm not sure what else there is, which is why I made this post.

I have cleared all caches,checked and validated all fonts, as well as running Techtool Pro, Disk Warrior, and repaired permissions, using Disk utility, both on HD and by booting from system install disk, and using the edrive of Techtool. They are also repaired each night prior to backup.

I have also removed check spell and grammar as you type, and word count. It is of course slower when I have tracking on, but that is something I have to use in my work.

I cannot even scroll down a page with Word 2008, but have to use the down arrow key, pausing to wait after each keystroke while word catches up. It is seriously irritating when you are working under a deadline, and obviously affected my capacity to post intelligently.

Sorry if I offended you with a 'smart-arse' comment but I have used all versions of word since Word 3, so I have accumulated some degree of insight and experience with MacWord over the past 20 years. In posting on this forum I was hoping to get access to a wider body of knowledge and experience.

 

[Jim Gordon Mac MVP]

Word 2008 runs beautifully on my Powerbook G4 under Leopard, so you are
right there. The problem is on my workhorse imac core2duo under OS10.6.2.

I think I have covered all suggestions made so far. I'm not sure what
else there is, which is why I made this post.

I have cleared all caches,checked and validated all fonts, as well as
running Techtool Pro, Disk Warrior, and repaired permissions, using Disk
utility, both on HD and by booting from system install disk, and using
the edrive of Techtool. They are also repaired each night prior to backup.

I have also removed check spell and grammar as you type, and word count.
It is of course slower when I have tracking on, but that is something I
have to use in my work.

I cannot even scroll down a page with Word 2008, but have to use the
down arrow key, pausing to wait after each keystroke while word catches
up. It is seriously irritating when you are working under a deadline,
and obviously affected my capacity to post intelligently.

Sorry if I offended you with a 'smart-arse' comment but I have used all
versions of word since Word 3, so I have accumulated some degree of
insight and experience with MacWord over the past 20 years. In posting
on this forum I was hoping to get access to a wider body of knowledge
and experience.

No problem, and no offense was taken. Following threads in newsgroups is
harder these days.

So now it's time to broaden the scope of the search for the problem.
There's an application called Activity Monitor in the Applications >
Utilities folder. You can use Activity Monitor to see exactly what's
going on in your system. Perhaps you've run out of enough physical RAM
and your computer is using your hard drive as a scratch disc. Maybe some
other software is running and taking control (anti-virus software, or
maybe a favorite system "haxie"). You can take a sample of the activity
of a program that is not running up to par and sometimes get an idea of
what is holding things up by reading through the sample.

You're sure there's not a second copy of Office (perhaps an unused trial
version) anywhere on the computer, right?

-Jim

 

[John McGhie]

I would be the last one to criticise you for smart-arse comments: I have a
lengthy track record of indulging in them myself I just needed you to
come back on the job, so we can solve this problem for you!

If you have done all that, my next guess is that the problem is "Change
Tracking".

To test this, make a copy of that document and ACCEPT all changes, then
DELETE all comments. Don't protest, just DO it This is a diagnostic
test ‹ We can discuss a work-around if that fixes it. If not, we need to
look further.

Then save and close the document. Then try. Chances are, that will fix it.

If you keep stacking changes on other changes in a Word file, the internal
structure of the document gets unbelievably complex, and each complication
sucks up a bit more CPU to unravel it.

There is an upper limit to how many changes you can get into a document.
The limit depends on your hardware, your CPU speed, the amount of free
memory on the box, and your patience. But every document will hit a limit
when it simply becomes too slow to work with.

The next version of Mac Word has had some serious surgery to improve
performance. It is likely to be dramatically faster with very complex
documents. But there will still be a limit somewhere.

Instead of using Change Tracking, keep a "Before" and "After" copy of the
document. When you have finished making changes, use Compare Documents to
mark the changes in a single operation.

Your documents will work fast, Word will stop crashing, your work will be
easy, and your changes will be marked just the same.

Hope this helps

Word 2008 runs beautifully on my Powerbook G4 under Leopard, so you are right
there. The problem is on my workhorse imac core2duo under OS10.6.2.

I think I have covered all suggestions made so far. I'm not sure what else
there is, which is why I made this post.

I have cleared all caches,checked and validated all fonts, as well as running
Techtool Pro, Disk Warrior, and repaired permissions, using Disk utility, both
on HD and by booting from system install disk, and using the edrive of
Techtool. They are also repaired each night prior to backup.

I have also removed check spell and grammar as you type, and word count. It is
of course slower when I have tracking on, but that is something I have to use
in my work.

I cannot even scroll down a page with Word 2008, but have to use the down
arrow key, pausing to wait after each keystroke while word catches up. It is
seriously irritating when you are working under a deadline, and obviously
affected my capacity to post intelligently.

Sorry if I offended you with a 'smart-arse' comment but I have used all
versions of word since Word 3, so I have accumulated some degree of insight
and experience with MacWord over the past 20 years. In posting on this forum I
was hoping to get access to a wider body of knowledge and experience.

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[abs]

Thanks for the helpful replies. I will work through them and report back. Looking at tracking makes a lot of sense as I do a lot of changes in documents of up to 7000 words. Also the slow scrolling is particularly noticeable in end result two columned pages of around 4000 words (albeit after changes have been accepted, although often in the same session).

 

[John McGhie]

Let's see now: Take 750 words a page, we're talking about documents of 5 to
9 pages? These are TINY!

Since it's a slow Sunday, just for grins I made a test document here. This
is in Word 2008, 12.2.4 on a Mac Pro with dual quads and 16 GB of RAM (which
is a generous hardware specification, suitable for producing major documents
for a living, as I do...)

Working in Page Layout View, I built a document in A4 with two columns, line
between, different headers odd and even, with dynamic headers and footers
(StyleRef fields in the headers and Page X of Y in the footers).

I added a Heading 1 on each page with List Numbering AND Field-numbering AND
a dynamic TIME field in it, and a Heading 2 containing the same. Then added
a Table of Contents.

This document is quite representative of a "Book" but is designed to be a
"worst case" obstacle course for Word. The results may surprise you (they
did me...)

At 1,500 pages, the document began to slow down. By 6,000 pages (over 2
million words) it was too slow to work with. By 12,288 pages, things were
unusably slow. Word hit a wall and maxed out: as I type this, Word is
sitting there with one core maxed out at 100% sucking 165 MB of real memory
and 265 MB of Virtual memory.

But it's still running. I can tell, because the CPU percentage and Memory
are changing slightly in Activity Monitor. Eventually, it will complete
that table of contents Saving the document will be another test in
patience: it's taking several minutes per save.

Interestingly, Word's compression algorithm is VERY efficient. This
document is entirely text, and the total file size is 900 kb! In .doc
format, that would blow out to about 31 MB.

Word 2010 on the PC is a lot quicker for this kind of thing. It's
multi-threaded, so it is able to help itself to several CPU cores. It's
working on a copy of the same document, having helped itself to 276% CPU,
it's chugging away. It would be "just" useable with a document this size,
but sane users (i.e. Not me...) would split the document somewhere north of
3,000 pages.

It was interesting (to me...) to see that Mac Word 2008 can work with
documents north of 5,000 pages: I have never taken PC Word higher than that.
After 30 years of doing this, I still use the old techniques we have grown
up with (separate Chapter files and RD Fields) to avoid taking Word far
above 250 pages a document. But I have now learned that the limits of the
modern versions are much higher than that.

Some things, of course, never change. "You get what you pay for." There's
about 10 person-years worth of work in a "real" document of 5,000 pages.
Anyone who wants you to prepare a document of that size can thus afford to
pay for very serious workstations to create it on. Anyone who decides to
save a couple of thousand dollars by buying cheaper workstations will get
their document in 20 years of person-hours, rather than ten. As a
documentation contractor, I am all in favour of under-powered iMac
workstations and laptops: they create far more billable hours. When it's my
money on the line, I spend up on the hardware

Cheers all

Thanks for the helpful replies. I will work through them and report back.
Looking at tracking makes a lot of sense as I do a lot of changes in documents
of up to 7000 words. Also the slow scrolling is particularly noticeable in end
result two columned pages of around 4000 words (albeit after changes have been
accepted, although often in the same session).

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[abs]

Dear John

Thank you for your help. Even though I had validated my fonts and removed duplicates I took another look at the fonts that were installed on my machine and discovered more than a few oldies, including one dated 1994. So I removed them all, even the one I was using as my default font.

Then I removed every last vestige of Office, and reinstalled a pristine version. I even ditched my normal template.

Not surprisingly Word is now working in a very silky manner. Oh the shame of it. When all else fails, read (and think about the implications of) the instructions. What a goose.

I was fascinated with your research into the ultimate word document. I am comforted that there is no possibility of exceeding word's capacity with any meaningful project. At least that's one thing that will not be obsolescent in our time.

Thanks again for your patience with my impatience, which had been building over some time.

regards
Adair

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Adair:

I just hate those "RTFM" moments... As Bob said earlier on another thread
"While I cannot recommend getting old, the alternative is even less
attractive..."

Yeah, I thought this would be a good time to create a "Max Document" to see
just how high the new version of Word would go. Word 2010 has astonishingly
high limits. I am waiting expectantly for a chance to subject Word 2011 to
similar cruel and unusual punishment

Cheers

Dear John

Thank you for your help. Even though I had validated my fonts and removed
duplicates I took another look at the fonts that were installed on my machine
and discovered more than a few oldies, including one dated 1994. So I removed
them all, even the one I was using as my default font.

Then I removed every last vestige of Office, and reinstalled a pristine
version. I even ditched my normal template.

Not surprisingly Word is now working in a very silky manner. Oh the shame of
it. When all else fails, read (and think about the implications of) the
instructions. What a goose.

I was fascinated with your research into the ultimate word document. I am
comforted that there is no possibility of exceeding word's capacity with any
meaningful project. At least that's one thing that will not be obsolescent in
our time.

Thanks again for your patience with my impatience, which had been building
over some time.

regards
Adair

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]