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?

For the original problem discussed in this thread there is a workaround that someone came up with: turn off background saving. You seem to be describing general issues with Office 2013. For troubleshooting, take a look at http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-word/unable-to-open-word-or-excel-2013-files/6f489bd3-404e-4987-942a-c7ceb4634d33?msgId=904d34bc-1ffc-4367-a2d2-d4376e331de4 .

I just wanted to add my voice to this. MICROSOFT THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE! I need to search and copy from a large document and it is painful to wait so long. At first I thought a bug was crashing Word because I kept seeing the "not responding" message at the top of window. I am going to keep shutting down the program when it hangs to send problem reports to Microsoft. Signed, One very aggravated customer My initial workaround was to stop using my legal copy of word 2013, download a copy of 2010 and use that instead - flawless. Some months later, I tried reinstalling W2013, BUT PROBLEM STILL PRESENT. The final solution presented when Apple made their office software free. I now use a MacBook Pro, no more problems, no ore crashes, no more viruses, no more updates that break the system. It is heaven after 20 years of Microsoft.

I just wanted to add my voice to this. MICROSOFT THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE! I need to search and copy from a large document and it is painful to wait so long. At first I thought a bug was crashing Word because I kept seeing the "not responding" message at the top of window. I am going to keep shutting down the program when it hangs to send problem reports to Microsoft. Signed, One very aggravated customer

Hi all I suffer from the same problem. Got a 60 page word which takes 20 seconds to save in Word 2013, but saved instantly in Word 2010. But I think I found kind of a workaround (at least it decreased saving time to 1 second): Go to Settings -> Advanced ->Save and disable "Allow Background saves". Names might differ since I did this in the German version. Tell me if this helped you too and if this is the way to go with Word 2013. Cheers Cheers indeed! Thank you VERY much! I can't tell you how glad I was to finally find this thread and a viable solution. Hard to believe it's a year after this thread was started and Guruprasad Ra from Microsoft tried, failed to help, and then disappeared. I can't believe Microsoft still hasn't fixed this. Customers are actually switching back to earlier versions of Office just be able to work. But then they're doing the same thing with Windows 8. I've been loyal to Microsoft for a long time, but arrogance and/or incompetence will be their downfall.

Please keep in mind that this is a user-to-user forum. As far as I can tell, no one from Microsoft has replied to this thread so far. When I asked, through "MVP channels," about this issue a week ago, it might very well have been the first time Microsoft heard of the issue. "As far as you can tell"??? The third post in this thread was from Guruprasad Ra back in January. Nothing he suggested worked so he disappeared. Microsoft's response to this issue is classic Microsoft arrogant mindset: "We're so dominant they have to use our product, so we don't have to really care." Either that or complete incompetence. There are no other real possibilities - this is not an isolated incident. No one else (except Apple) who is successful in IT could get away with repeated foolishness like this. Overall I really like Microsoft, but either this mindset or incompetence will be the downfall of Microsoft.

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

Stefan Blom 351.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2014-02-13T10:26:24+00:00

For the original problem discussed in this thread there is a workaround that someone came up with: turn off background saving.

You seem to be describing general issues with Office 2013. For troubleshooting, take a look at http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-word/unable-to-open-word-or-excel-2013-files/6f489bd3-404e-4987-942a-c7ceb4634d33?msgId=904d34bc-1ffc-4367-a2d2-d4376e331de4.
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Anonymous

2014-02-13T01:41:48+00:00

I just wanted to add my voice to this.

MICROSOFT THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!

I need to search and copy from a large document and it is painful to wait so long. At first I thought a bug was crashing Word because I kept seeing the "not responding" message at the top of window.

I am going to keep shutting down the program when it hangs to send problem reports to Microsoft.

Signed,

One very aggravated customer

My initial workaround was to stop using my legal copy of word 2013, download a copy of 2010 and use that instead - flawless. Some months later, I tried reinstalling W2013, BUT PROBLEM STILL PRESENT.

The final solution presented when Apple made their office software free. I now use a MacBook Pro, no more problems, no ore crashes, no more viruses, no more updates that break the system. It is heaven after 20 years of Microsoft.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2014-02-12T15:11:57+00:00

I just wanted to add my voice to this.

MICROSOFT THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!

I need to search and copy from a large document and it is painful to wait so long. At first I thought a bug was crashing Word because I kept seeing the "not responding" message at the top of window.

I am going to keep shutting down the program when it hangs to send problem reports to Microsoft.

Signed,

One very aggravated customer
Was this answer helpful?

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Anonymous

2014-02-11T09:30:44+00:00

Hi all

I suffer from the same problem. Got a 60 page word which takes 20 seconds to save in Word 2013, but saved instantly in Word 2010.

But I think I found kind of a workaround (at least it decreased saving time to 1 second):

Go to Settings -> Advanced ->Save and disable "Allow Background saves".

Names might differ since I did this in the German version.

Tell me if this helped you too and if this is the way to go with Word 2013.

Cheers

Cheers indeed! Thank you VERY much! I can't tell you how glad I was to finally find this thread and a viable solution.

Hard to believe it's a year after this thread was started and Guruprasad Ra from Microsoft tried, failed to help, and then disappeared. I can't believe Microsoft still hasn't fixed this. Customers are actually switching back to earlier versions of Office just be able to work. But then they're doing the same thing with Windows 8.

I've been loyal to Microsoft for a long time, but arrogance and/or incompetence will be their downfall.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2014-02-11T09:10:36+00:00

Please keep in mind that this is a user-to-user forum. As far as I can tell, no one from Microsoft has replied to this thread so far.

When I asked, through "MVP channels," about this issue a week ago, it might very well have been the first time Microsoft heard of the issue.

"As far as you can tell"???

The third post in this thread was from Guruprasad Ra back in January. Nothing he suggested worked so he disappeared.

Microsoft's response to this issue is classic Microsoft arrogant mindset: "We're so dominant they have to use our product, so we don't have to really care." Either that or complete incompetence. There are no other real possibilities - this is not an isolated incident. No one else (except Apple) who is successful in IT could get away with repeated foolishness like this.

Overall I really like Microsoft, but either this mindset or incompetence will be the downfall of Microsoft.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments