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

OMG. This WORKED! I've had this issue for years. My 500 page document, which I am still updating, generally takes 20-30 seconds to save. After making this change there is a pause for a second or two, then the documents saves in less than a couple of seconds -- total elapsed time is three seconds, four max. Hopefully, this will continue to work (times have varied in the past). I suspect it will -- this is a dramatic change.

I wonder why auto-save was gumming things up so much? Probably a bug in scanning code somewhere....

THANK YOU!

Barry

I have had SLOW saving problems in ALL MS Word documents with just a few lines of plain text, even newly created docs. e.g. I create new doc, type a sentence, wait 10 seconds for a save. subsequent saves 5 seconds. used to be instant.

I went into options and UNCHECKED "allow background saves' and voila issue fixed. Thanks for the tip! worked for me. saving is now instant - maybe this is an issue due to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to 10 this year (which generally made my PC faster - a first for Microsoft!). 

how to do it: FOR MS office Word 2007 users, click the office button (round colourful icon top left hand corner), at bottom of screen click 'word options' then select 'advanced' and scroll down to the 'save' section. 

In general, I would concur that Word remains buggy (well up to my version anyway), and still isn't fully up to the task as well as it should be. Rant continues below...

...bugs I noticed back in the 1990s in Word excel etc  never got fixed, and perhaps the single best feature innovation they made - spellcheck - isn't something I have seen improve (although i slavishly have used autocorrect and saved my autocorrect logs (ACL files) and moved then between computers for decades now). So I use google docs, which is brilliant at suggesting a correction for misspelled words - the engine is very context sensitive/predictive.

(by the way I am using Microsoft Office Word 2007, on a Windows 10 computer with SSD, which is FAST. Still using old MS Office as I could not be bothered learning - confusing - new menu layouts all over again every few years for no benefit, plus I am saving money I dont need to spend, and security patches are still being issued right up until this week in 2016).

This looks useful but you have an error. 

You said:

Using **Regedit,**go to this registry key address: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Excel\Security\FileValidation

but the image provided indicates that should have been:

Using **Regedit,**go to this registry key address: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Word\Security\FileValidation

Thank you for the correction and I'm glad that you notice. Allow me to edit my post. Creating 15.0\Excel or Word key will actually do the same thing.

We've indicated in the previous post that a few machines will not have***\Office\15.0\Excel\Security\FileValidation**,* so we suggested to create/add it instead. In the screenshot, it was already added. This modification was found useful on our test since it gradually decreased the time required for large files to be saved. But cannot guarantee that this will work on every machine. we still need to consider the overall system performance.

Now tell me - Will this solve the problem in Office 365 Word 16 if I change the version number from 15.0 to 16.0?

Will this Excel registry key stop Excel expecting .xls files downloaded from my bank to be unblocked before use?

Regarding this query, it was not yet tested for Office 365.

Cheers,

This looks useful but you have an error. 

You said:

Using **Regedit,**go to this registry key address: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Excel\Security\FileValidation

but the image provided indicates that should have been:

Using **Regedit,**go to this registry key address: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Word\Security\FileValidation

Now tell me - Will this solve the problem in Office 365 Word 16 if I change the version number from 15.0 to 16.0?

Will this Excel registry key stop Excel expecting .xls files downloaded from my bank to be unblocked before use?

Hello,

In case that everyone still got this slow-save issue in Microsoft Office 2013. Allow me to set your expectation, that meeting this issue has a few things to consider:

1. Background applications, such as Protection Software and/or Antivirus.
2. Size of the document being saved.
3. Storage read speed (Hard drive/USB drive Performance Specific)
4. Overall system performance.

All of the solutions that were shared by other community members are really helpful. In addition to those solutions, please perform this method:

Note: The method to fix the issue will have Registry modification. Before you modify the Registry, make sure to back it up and understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. Please refer to this link: How to back up and restore the registry in Windows.

Using Regedit, go to this registry key address:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Excel\Security\FileValidation

Or

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Word\Security\FileValidation

Double click the REG_DWORD: EnableOnLoad, set its value to 0 (zero) and restart the PC.

If you do not have the ~\Office\15.0\Excel (or Word)\Security\FileValidation, you can create it:

Most of the other user's same cases, this Registry method worked. To some, it improved the save time consumption.

Since we need to Consider the Overall System Performance, please perform this method as well:

1. In Searchtab of the **Start menu,**type "Adjust the appearance and performance of windows" and press Enter
2. Go to Advanced tab and click Change... button in the Virtual memory section
3. At the top, uncheck the box right before **"Automatically manage paging file size for all drives"**option.
4. Select drive C: (or the drive where Windows 10 is installed).
5. Select Custom size: by ticking its radio button, and change the Initial size (MB) and Maximum size (MB) to the Recommended value that you will find just below; on the Total paging file size for all drivers section.

This method will help improve the system performance.

Remember: Changing the Paging file size into larger than which was recommended by Windows is not going to be helpful.

Lastly, depending on which Protection Software you have, please temporarily tweak its scan policy. For Document scanning, make sure to check that it is not scanning the entire documents that are saved (or being saved), for it will be a little harsh in the system. Contact your Antivirus Software support line in order to do this.

Best regards.

Post edited; Thanks to [The real jaydax]