I am using the latest Word 2013 RC in German. Allthough I am very pleased with the overall performance and features of this new version, I ran into some very annoying problems, that didn't exist with the latest Word 2010. These should be easy to reproduce: Take a long document (*.docx) with at least 100 pages and try to save it. This takes forever - I can see the progress bar filling up slowly. It takes at least 10-20 seconds to save. During that process I cannot do anything within Word - not even scroll smoothly. It slows down to the point of almost freezing up. I didn't have this problem with Word 2010 on the same system. Take that same document (>100 pages) and try to copy&paste some text (for example out of Firefox) and paste it as plain text - this takes at least 1 to 2 seconds. I didn't have any kind of delay with Word 2010. Word 2013 seems to work ok with *.doc files - it's still slower than Word 2010 a lot faster than saving *.docx files. I have no problems whatsoever with short documents. Can anyone confirm these problems with Word 2013 RC?

File - Options - Save - Save files in this format: After changing from DOCX to DOC, my bigger files save very quickly so make sure you check this, too.

For comparison, saving my 1200-page document (which has thousands of endnotes, hundreds of cross-refs, six indexes, 100 partial TOC's, etc.) takes about 45 seconds. It's been getting slower gradually. Word 2013 must do lots of processing during the save because just copying the completed file to storage is much faster, so it's more than pure write time.

This helped absolutely. Saving that took 10 to 20 seconds now happens in less than 2.

My document is almost 1200 pages and about 7 MB. I save to a solid-state drive which has lots of room, over 120 GB. Usually the docx takes about 30 seconds to save but sometimes it takes over ten minutes. I don't know what determines whether it will save fast or slowly. However, I did not reset Check Spelling and Grammar because the doc still has spelling errors and typos so I assumed it was not checking spelling. I just resaved with spelling/grammar off and it was much faster, but I can't tell if that made the difference.

Just wanted to update the post about the slowness issue (saving, pasting, typing response...). I've learned a couple of things, and thought I'd share those findings. I use "Snap" or split screen configuration almost all the time. So, I try to make MS Word "Wrap to Window" as WordPad can do. MS Word 2013 will not "Wrap to Window" in a conventional sense, but it does have the ability to view a page as Read Mode, Print Layout, or Web Layout. In Web Layout view, MS Word 2013 documents will "wrap" text to any size window - which is great for me as that's how I do lots of things typically. The Problem of "document slowness" reappears whenever I try to use the "Web Layout" view and resize a window to fit a section of my screen. The computer has to render (compute positional information) for the entire long document every time I resize the window. Bottom line - it takes many more resources (CPU, RAM, HDD, Bus Bandwidth etc...) to run MSWord 2013 in Web Layout view than Print Layout view (at least on this computer). Oddly enough, the same document will run perfectly fast even with "Wrap to Window" enabled in WordPad. Unfortunately, WordPad does not have the "Welcome Back" Auto Bookmark Feature (not sure what the real name is, but you click the pop-up and it takes you to the last place you were working in the document) that MS Word 2013 has and that feature is useful - to me. So as a half hearted workaround, I simply have increased the right margin (to about 3.7" when using the 8.5" x 11" paper size) of my entire document when in "Print Layout" view such that when that document is "Snapped" into a 1/2 or 1/3 screen window all the text and stuff appear within that width. I don't typically print most of these long documents any way. The document is again "Fast" when configured like this. YMMV (your mileage may vary), but so far it is working for me. Tables in the long document appear to be undamaged, but they did not conform to the new narrow margins, no doubt there are other issues to consider as there are lots of different things inserted into the document. I'm hoping it all will fix itself when and if I put the margins back to normal - for now it seems fast, and the few tables I checked appeared to be intact. SUMMARY SO FAR... The things done in my previous post (select all, from the old document, and paste using the merge formatting option to a new MS Word 2013 document) did help and reduced the file's size from 1.6 MB to 328 KB. (also from previous post) After reading lots of posts on this thread I tried to disable background saves, then I tried WinWord / safe, looked at the add-in COM stuff (chickened out), and even tried disabling all AutoComplete or any spelling or grammar or anything that might try to fix or monitor my document and it still was doggy. These things did not seem to help the speed of my document - at least that I could detect. This post update by not using "Web Layout" view to get "Wrap to Window" feature has also helped significantly to speed the document up. Print Layout view is simply faster regardless of what you do with your margins. Hopefully, we can find a few workarounds or at least determine what to avoid.

Word 2013: Extremely slow saving and pasting plain text in long documents

Anonymous

I am using the latest Word 2013 RC in German. Allthough I am very pleased with the overall performance and features of this new version, I ran into some very annoying problems, that didn't exist with the latest Word 2010. These should be easy to reproduce:

Take a long document (*.docx) with at least 100 pages and try to save it. This takes forever - I can see the progress bar filling up slowly. It takes at least 10-20 seconds to save. During that process I cannot do anything within Word - not even scroll smoothly. It slows down to the point of almost freezing up. I didn't have this problem with Word 2010 on the same system.
Take that same document (>100 pages) and try to copy&paste some text (for example out of Firefox) and paste it as plain text - this takes at least 1 to 2 seconds. I didn't have any kind of delay with Word 2010.
Word 2013 seems to work ok with *.doc files - it's still slower than Word 2010 a lot faster than saving *.docx files.

I have no problems whatsoever with short documents. Can anyone confirm these problems with Word 2013 RC?

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

163 answers

Anonymous

2015-04-29T06:18:07+00:00

File - Options - Save - Save files in this format:

After changing from DOCX to DOC, my bigger files save very quickly so make sure you check this, too.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2015-04-01T17:49:53+00:00

For comparison, saving my 1200-page document (which has thousands of endnotes, hundreds of cross-refs, six indexes, 100 partial TOC's, etc.) takes about 45 seconds. It's been getting slower gradually. Word 2013 must do lots of processing during the save because just copying the completed file to storage is much faster, so it's more than pure write time.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2015-03-31T14:16:56+00:00

This helped absolutely. Saving that took 10 to 20 seconds now happens in less than 2.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2015-02-22T06:56:56+00:00

My document is almost 1200 pages and about 7 MB. I save to a solid-state drive which has lots of room, over 120 GB. Usually the docx takes about 30 seconds to save but sometimes it takes over ten minutes. I don't know what determines whether it will save fast or slowly. However, I did not reset Check Spelling and Grammar because the doc still has spelling errors and typos so I assumed it was not checking spelling. I just resaved with spelling/grammar off and it was much faster, but I can't tell if that made the difference.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2015-01-17T18:20:04+00:00
Just wanted to update the post about the slowness issue (saving, pasting, typing response...).

I've learned a couple of things, and thought I'd share those findings.

I use "Snap" or split screen configuration almost all the time. So, I try to make MS Word "Wrap to Window" as WordPad can do. MS Word 2013 will not "Wrap to Window" in a conventional sense, but it does have the ability to view a page as Read Mode, Print Layout, or Web Layout.

In Web Layout view, MS Word 2013 documents will "wrap" text to any size window - which is great for me as that's how I do lots of things typically.

The Problem of "document slowness" reappears whenever I try to use the "Web Layout" view and resize a window to fit a section of my screen. The computer has to render (compute positional information) for the entire long document every time I resize the window. Bottom line - it takes many more resources (CPU, RAM, HDD, Bus Bandwidth etc...) to run MSWord 2013 in Web Layout view than Print Layout view (at least on this computer).

Oddly enough, the same document will run perfectly fast even with "Wrap to Window" enabled in WordPad. Unfortunately, WordPad does not have the "Welcome Back" Auto Bookmark Feature (not sure what the real name is, but you click the pop-up and it takes you to the last place you were working in the document) that MS Word 2013 has and that feature is useful - to me.

So as a half hearted workaround, I simply have increased the right margin (to about 3.7" when using the 8.5" x 11" paper size) of my entire document when in "Print Layout" view such that when that document is "Snapped" into a 1/2 or 1/3 screen window all the text and stuff appear within that width. I don't typically print most of these long documents any way.

The document is again "Fast" when configured like this. YMMV (your mileage may vary), but so far it is working for me. Tables in the long document appear to be undamaged, but they did not conform to the new narrow margins, no doubt there are other issues to consider as there are lots of different things inserted into the document. I'm hoping it all will fix itself when and if I put the margins back to normal - for now it seems fast, and the few tables I checked appeared to be intact.

SUMMARY SO FAR...
1. The things done in my previous post (select all, from the old document, and paste using the merge formatting option to a new MS Word 2013 document) did help and reduced the file's size from 1.6 MB to 328 KB.
2. (also from previous post) After reading lots of posts on this thread I tried to disable background saves, then I tried WinWord / safe, looked at the add-in COM stuff (chickened out), and even tried disabling all AutoComplete or any spelling or grammar or anything that might try to fix or monitor my document and it still was doggy. These things did not seem to help the speed of my document - at least that I could detect.
3. This post update by not using "Web Layout" view to get "Wrap to Window" feature has also helped significantly to speed the document up. Print Layout view is simply faster regardless of what you do with your margins.
Hopefully, we can find a few workarounds or at least determine what to avoid.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments