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?

Hi, Some 9 months ago I posted the solution that worked for me. I forgot all about the issue in the meantime. Reposting might help? The problem, to my best knowledge, is in the background saving of documents. Since saving on a modern day computer does not require all that much time, switch to foreground saving by: disable: options -> advanced -> save -> allow background saves. best regards, Jan

wordyone wrote: The common thread here seems to be that in Word 2013 [...], the setting "Allow Background Saves" [...] For others with this problem, is there any evidence that "background saves" are trying to synchronize with online storage (e.g. OneDrive)? The sort of delay I get feels like waiting for a web page to refresh. Makes me wonder if part of the problem is Word 2013 trying to "Background Save..." into the cloud. I've tried to disable all OneDrive kind of stuff. The behavour seems to be the same regardless of whether you're on line or not. In contrast, the delay seems to be size dependent. In summary, I don't think internet storage is the most likely culprit here. But why speculate? MS should investigate and fix the problem!

wordyone wrote: The common thread here seems to be that in Word 2013 [...], the setting "Allow Background Saves" [...] For others with this problem, is there any evidence that "background saves" are trying to synchronize with online storage (e.g. OneDrive)? The sort of delay I get feels like waiting for a web page to refresh. Makes me wonder if part of the problem is Word 2013 trying to "Background Save..." into the cloud.

The common thread here seems to be that in Word 2013 when working on large documents, the setting "Allow Background Saves" is taking up a lot of processing time, and keyboard lag is much more noticeable. The slowness also impacts those who use the Word object model... macro code that ran well with Word 2010 and prior versions is significantly slower when running with Word 2013 objects. Would be very curious to hear follow-ups on this one - particularly whether Service Pack 1 brought any improvement for those who posted earlier on these issues.

Please note that you are not communicating directly with Microsoft in this thread. With very few exceptions, we are all volunteers trying to help. Have you actually tried starting in Safe mode? It's quick and if it temporarily (for the session running in Safe mode) solves the problem, then it is clear what the problem is, and you can go on troubleshooting add-ins from there.

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.

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163 answers

Anonymous

2014-05-21T20:26:22+00:00

Hi,

Some 9 months ago I posted the solution that worked for me. I forgot all about the issue in the meantime. Reposting might help? The problem, to my best knowledge, is in the background saving of documents. Since saving on a modern day computer does not require all that much time, switch to foreground saving by:

disable: options -> advanced -> save -> allow background saves.

best regards,

Jan
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Anonymous

2014-05-20T08:29:07+00:00

wordyone wrote:

The common thread here seems to be that in Word 2013 [...], the setting "Allow Background Saves" [...]

For others with this problem, is there any evidence that "background saves" are trying to synchronize with online storage (e.g. OneDrive)? The sort of delay I get feels like waiting for a web page to refresh. Makes me wonder if part of the problem is Word 2013 trying to "Background Save..." into the cloud.

I've tried to disable all OneDrive kind of stuff. The behavour seems to be the same regardless of whether you're on line or not. In contrast, the delay seems to be size dependent. In summary, I don't think internet storage is the most likely culprit here.

But why speculate? MS should investigate and fix the problem!
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Anonymous

2014-05-15T20:48:37+00:00

wordyone wrote:

The common thread here seems to be that in Word 2013 [...], the setting "Allow Background Saves" [...]

For others with this problem, is there any evidence that "background saves" are trying to synchronize with online storage (e.g. OneDrive)? The sort of delay I get feels like waiting for a web page to refresh. Makes me wonder if part of the problem is Word 2013 trying to "Background Save..." into the cloud.
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Anonymous

2014-05-15T19:13:57+00:00

The common thread here seems to be that in Word 2013 when working on large documents, the setting "Allow Background Saves" is taking up a lot of processing time, and keyboard lag is much more noticeable. The slowness also impacts those who use the Word object model... macro code that ran well with Word 2010 and prior versions is significantly slower when running with Word 2013 objects.

Would be very curious to hear follow-ups on this one - particularly whether Service Pack 1 brought any improvement for those who posted earlier on these issues.
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Stefan Blom 351.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2014-05-03T12:02:02+00:00

Please note that you are not communicating directly with Microsoft in this thread. With very few exceptions, we are all volunteers trying to help.

Have you actually tried starting in Safe mode? It's quick and if it temporarily (for the session running in Safe mode) solves the problem, then it is clear what the problem is, and you can go on troubleshooting add-ins from there.
Was this answer helpful?

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