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?

All it takes is any long document, with or without complex formatting, and Background Saving turned on. The file format doesn't matter, I suggest you try the newest Word 2013 format. Maybe 20% of the time, it will be fast, 80% of the time, it will be slow.

Would anyone who has experienced the problem with slow saving in Word 2013 be willing to share an example document with the Office Product Group? Remove any sensitive information, upload the file to SkyDrive and post a link here. Thanks.

I don't disagree with the workaround, only with Steve_SSW's comment... I'll see if I can find out anything on the status of this problem.

This doesn't really speed up the save, it just keeps WORD from saving so frequently, which puts the document at risk for losing changes. Note that turning off background saves doesn't affect the frequency of saving, only how the save is being done by Word. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918793/en-us/ . Dear Stefan, We're discussing a necessary work-around to avoid a very disturbing bug in Word 2013. Thanks to the work-around (turning off background saves), the time it takes to save a medium-size document drops from up to ten minutes to seconds. Perhaps this is a clue why it works? Perhaps MS could use this information to FIX the bug? Kind regards,

This doesn't really speed up the save, it just keeps WORD from saving so frequently, which puts the document at risk for losing changes. No, Steve, you're wrong. It DOES affect the time it takes to manually save the document DRAMATICALLY on the machines where I have tried it (Win 7 & 8). Many minutes is reduced to seconds or fractions of seconds. I have verified this many times. It seems your answer is based on a theoretical analysis rather than practical tests. Am I right? I know this does not make sense and is not the way it's supposed to work but it's a fact. No doubt it's an effect of a bug. I just wish MS would take the time to fix it, so that we can spend our time more creatively!

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?

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Anonymous

2013-08-15T17:04:07+00:00

All it takes is any long document, with or without complex formatting, and Background Saving turned on. The file format doesn't matter, I suggest you try the newest Word 2013 format. Maybe 20% of the time, it will be fast, 80% of the time, it will be slow.
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Stefan Blom 351.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2013-08-15T08:02:11+00:00

Would anyone who has experienced the problem with slow saving in Word 2013 be willing to share an example document with the Office Product Group? Remove any sensitive information, upload the file to SkyDrive and post a link here. Thanks.
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Stefan Blom 351.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2013-08-14T13:47:41+00:00

I don't disagree with the workaround, only with Steve_SSW's comment...

I'll see if I can find out anything on the status of this problem.
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Anonymous

2013-08-14T11:12:24+00:00

This doesn't really speed up the save, it just keeps WORD from saving so frequently, which puts the document at risk for losing changes.

Note that turning off background saves doesn't affect the frequency of saving, only how the save is being done by Word. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918793/en-us/.

Dear Stefan,

We're discussing a necessary work-around to avoid a very disturbing bug in Word 2013. Thanks to the work-around (turning off background saves), the time it takes to save a medium-size document drops from up to ten minutes to seconds. Perhaps this is a clue why it works? Perhaps MS could use this information to FIX the bug?

Kind regards,
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Anonymous

2013-08-14T11:06:46+00:00

This doesn't really speed up the save, it just keeps WORD from saving so frequently, which puts the document at risk for losing changes.

No, Steve, you're wrong. It DOES affect the time it takes to manually save the document DRAMATICALLY on the machines where I have tried it (Win 7 & 8). Many minutes is reduced to seconds or fractions of seconds. I have verified this many times.

It seems your answer is based on a theoretical analysis rather than practical tests. Am I right?

I know this does not make sense and is not the way it's supposed to work but it's a fact. No doubt it's an effect of a bug. I just wish MS would take the time to fix it, so that we can spend our time more creatively!
Was this answer helpful?

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