Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How slow is Word on Intel Macs?

spinne1 said:
I don't know what is wrong with everyone's computers, but there is NO lag whatsoever running Word on Office 2004 on my lowly G4/533 Mhz Powermac with 1.25 GB of ram.

That said, I am only wondering about those who run PowerPCs, not Intel Macs. For Intels, I can understand. Maybe Rosetta isn't good enough. I'm not really sure.
Click to expand...

Well, yes but the post WAS concerning the speed of running Office in Rosetta on in IntelMac. We are all pretty sure it runs fine on your G4 Mac because Office is optimized for PPC. If posters are complaining they can't run Office on their G4/G5's then they probably need to clean up system, reinstall software or buy some ram. Office on PPC shouldn't be an issue other than the standard MS crap-ola.
 
Some of this depends just how you are using Word. I have a PowerBook 1.25 (1.5G RAM) and a PowerMac Dual 2.5 (2G RAM). On both machines, large, complex documents (i.e. 30 pages, graphics files, large tables, bibliography, track changes) bogs Word down, and sometimes results is the program consuming large amounts of CPU resources. It has always struck me that Word seemed to be using an inordinate amount of resources for what it was doing (especially on the dual PM!). This does not happen in Word for Windows.

I am hopeful that the transition to x86 will greatly improve the performance of Word in these types of files in the next version of Office for Mac - maybe thats a little optimistic.

I think you need to understand the context of current performance under PPC in order to evaluate Rosetta performance fairly.
 
Poff said:
I would recommend NeoOffice (google it, based on openoffice.)

much quicker and more responsive then microsoft word for mac.
Click to expand...

Does it run "natively" on an Intel Mac?
 
Scottyk9 said:
Some of this depends just how you are using Word. I have a PowerBook 1.25 (1.5G RAM) and a PowerMac Dual 2.5 (2G RAM). On both machines, large, complex documents (i.e. 30 pages, graphics files, large tables, bibliography, track changes) bogs Word down, and sometimes results is the program consuming large amounts of CPU resources. It has always struck me that Word seemed to be using an inordinate amount of resources for what it was doing (especially on the dual PM!). This does not happen in Word for Windows.
Click to expand...

Yes, thank you! Typing a few random characters on a blank document is not an adequate test. The problem becomes more severe as documents get more complex. It's unacceptable for a $300 program. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of alternatives out there if you want to use MS Word's Track Changes. Yes, if you're just working on 1-2 page text documents, MS Word is acceptable. But so is TextEdit.

Pages crushes MS word on complex, graphic-heavy documents, but it doesn't handle Track Changes.
 
this thread is too funny

I run M$ Office:Mac on an iBook G3 366 with 320Mb RAM. And it works perfectly fine, never crashes. Maybe I am too patient or so?
 
Trick to running Word is to keep other apps closed especially Font management like Suitcase or if you need a specific font only have that one open.

If you have hundreds of fonts open Word, when starting up 'Optimises Font Menu Performance', try it with lots of fonts open then none and see the difference.

Lots of Ram helps too!
 
I'm surprised at the responses in this thread. I use Word just about every day on my 12" 1.33 GHz PowerBook, and I've got no complaints about speed or stability. I think it has crashed 2 or 3 times in the year and a half that I've had it. I will say that when I have a document with many pages and full of tables and big pictures, scrolling can be a little slow, but editing itself is still just fine. TBH, I haven't had much experience with Word on an Intel Mac, but from playing with it at the Apple store, I was surprised by how well it ran. The initial launch took a little while, then it was fine. Like most Mac users, I have a pretty negative opinion of MS, but I have to say that I'm very pleased with Office 2004.
 
plinden said:
I have a 17" iMac (ie. 1.83GHz Core Duo) with 2GB RAM, and I just opened Word on it - it took four seconds from clicking the "W" icon until the templates appeared.

I've edited several documents but my wife has used it more than I have and she hasn't had any complaints. It hasn't crashed once for either of us.

Perhaps it is a bit laggy if you type fast. I haven't tested on Word on Windows to compare, but it took 11 seconds to enter a line of 't's, by holding down the 't' key.
Click to expand...
(I know, quoting myself, bad form etc) So I got into work a bit late today (dental emergency, only available appointment at 11am) and just tried this out on Windows.

Opening is pretty much instantaneous compared to four seconds on the iMac, typing a line of 't's took 9 seconds compared to 11 seconds on the iMac.

So not too bad for a Rosetta application. Of course, as has been mentioned, it's when you have enormous documents with heavy use of change tracking that you may have problems.

If it takes 30 seconds to open on a MBP even with less RAM, it seems that Mac maybe has other problems.

nduser: the OP was talking about Word running in Rosetta on an Intel Mac.
 
plinden said:
nduser: the OP was talking about Word running in Rosetta on an Intel Mac.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:

Hence my mention of little experience with Word on Intel Macs other than at the Apple Store. Additionally, I was noting that a lot of the replies in this thread -- many of them talking about Word on PPC Macs -- surprised me because they indicate that Word is unstable and slow even when not run in Rosetta. That has not been my experience.
 
NewSc2 said:
i know this is a bit off topic, but on my powerbook word ran fine.

perhaps not as fast as other mac-based programs, and maybe not as speedy as on my pc, but comon, it's word! CPU-intensive and word don't belong in the same sentence.
Click to expand...

I agree word runs fine on mine as well :confused:

However I tried out an Intel Mac (only had 512MB RAM) and I do see what the original poster is talking about....it is slow...and like you said its not CPU intensive...it shoudln't be stressing that much on a supposedly 4-5x more powerful system (yes I realize thats on native apps only) but come on a delay when typing? :p
 
Mine is definately slow and Im glad to hear im not the only one. I got a copy from my friend and I thought maybe that was why. The typing fails to keep up with me and it takes forever to load. Also, my firefox is slow as all hell also. I like firefox better than safari, but i use safari because it is so much faster loading.
 
Didn't Microsoft release a special patch to make Word run better with Rosetta? Are you all running with the latest patch?
 
I thought I would update this thread, as I have now been using word with a MacBook Pro for about a month now. The context is important, and is as follows:

1. Due to collaborative nature of my work, I must use Word for most documents (track changes mostly)
2. The documents I work with are complex - 30-100pages, figures, tables, track changes, and bibliography software
3. My comparators are: 1.25Ghz PB, 1.8Ghz G5 iMac, Dual 2.5gHz Powermac (with 1.5, 1.5, and 2 G of RAM respectively)
4. I have found Word on all these machines a little laggy - not the same immediate responsiveness as in Windows Word
5. I have a 2.16 Ghz MPB with 2G of Ram

Despite my anxiety about using Rosetta, it is working extremely well. Subjectively working with complex Word documents is better on my intel Mac than the PB or iMac, and not noticably slower than the dual G5. However, opening Word, and opening files in Word definitely takes longer. I suspect having maxed out on the Ram has made a difference.

I am pleased that my MBP has replaced my PB and Dual G5 without a significant change in performance (which I think is pretty remarkable). These machines are fantastic, and will only get better with universal apps.
 
debrey said:
I'm thinking of switching to a Mac after years of frustraing Windows/Dell experiences. I've been researching for the last week, much of it on this site (which is great, by the way).

I walked into my local university store and tried out a 2Ghz/1GB MBP. I spend at least half of my time using Word so I thought I should try that. I found it ridiculously slow. The whole system booted up in less time than it took for the little Word icon to stop bouncing and open up the program. When I typed there was a slight lag in the letters appearing and if I typed at full speed it couldn't keep up with me.

So this worries me. I don't want to spend over $2000 for a computer that can't run Word as fast as my 2 year old Dell. My questions are:

If you own an Intel Mac, how fast do you find running Word (and what system do you have)?

How decent is the apple word processor? How easy is it to convert files in and out of Word files? Can it deal, for example, with track changes?

Thanks for your help,

David
Click to expand...

Because you need a lot of speed to run word...:rolleyes:
 
it works FINE

David:

It works fine. I've been using it nonstop for the past two weeks (*mumblemuttermetacognitionpaperfinalsweekwhodecidedgraduateschoolwasagoodidea*) and I'm doing bibliographies and I am tracking changes and adding words like "metacognition" to the spellcheck dictionary and don't worry - it's aok.

I tried it 101 times in the store before I bought this desktop, and I'm very happy that I finally did (made my decision and then waited for the right refurb deal.)

Word crashed left and right on my 800mhz iBook, but works FINE on my 17" 1.83 iMac. I have 1g total memory.

Worry not!
 
This is the one thing that has bothered me since i bought my second powerbook and first G4 machine in 2001.

Word ran on OS 7.5 on my 1994 Powerbook 145b just as fast, if not faster, than my G4 Powerbook 400mhz Titanium OS 9.1. I was shocked. Nothing sped up with OSX either.

18 Macs later, I figured out what to do.

Use my old 2001 Word for Mac OSX.

It seems faster and less cumbersome than Word 2004.

I also think that Word will run better on the PowerPC platform than the Intels until MSoft comes out with something for the Intel Macs. Even then, this Word issue will delay my purchase of an Intel Mac for quite a while.
 
I haven't found it to be that slow. It takes maybe an extra second or two longer than on my PB to open. Using it isn't too bad really, there are occasional lags and scrolling can be a little jumpy and that's on a machine with only 512MB.
 
i tried out word, powerpoint, and excel (from office testdrive) all at once plus safari and itunes on my macbook to see how well it would do and there was some lag b/t typing and scrolling pages. then i used just word, itunes, and safari and it was fine. the word files i was using were 30 page long reports with text, graphs, pictures, and tables. performance of office xp is faster on my PC overall but i was satisfied.

on another note, im not sure if i should purchase it yet but i will undoubtedly need it at some point. is there a new version of Office expected thats designed for the intel macs?
 
debrey said:
I walked into my local university store and tried out a 2Ghz/1GB MBP. I found it ridiculously slow.
Click to expand...

I was curious and checked the performance aspect of Word on a similarly equipped notebook at Apple last weekend. Admittedly, I am not a super speedy typist, but overall I found it to be quite responsive and without the lag time you cited.
 
I use it on both my Macs and notice no difference between the two, and I find it generally very responsive. However, the other day I thought Word was being slow at start up and was about to blame it on Rosetta, then I remembered I was using my iMac G5!
 
fast as running word on my ibook g4. a macbook runs fine. maybe tad slower, but it's still comfortably native like fast
 
I think is is a little slow. When I type it isn't EXACTLY with my typing, but it does type it. I don't use it because it is annoying.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back