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?

Wondering if anyone knows, would Word's buggy issues like those described in this thread (slowness copy-pasting, saving, etc., particularly with long, complex documents) be affected at all by factors like the computer's processor type and speed? - amount of RAM? storage space free? whether hard drive is disk vs. the newer SSD format? etc.

Despite its label, Word does NOT have a copy function which uses the source formatting; it does use it only if every style in the original is also present for the copy. This was a terrible design decision, there being no reason why the copy function can't just use the source formatting without qualifications. I cannot assign a style to all my complex tables. Another miserable screwup is the omission of a Protect mode or a style (applied to an arbitrary selection) which says "Don't change this." I've lost count of the number of tables that Word has changed without my permission. MS should spend some $ and turn Word into a (nearly) bug-free, properly designed, professional app. It's currently far from it. Before they do that they should inquire of their users for a change.

Unfortunately disabling background saves is neither desirable nor a complete solution to the problem. The same problem re-occurs in Word 2016 and appears to be one which MS can't replicate and which therefore doesn't exist. perhaps if they tested this on a slower machine with a slower internet connection they might find it does exist. I find the problem occurs when a document is created using an older version of Word and is edited in Compatibility mode. Presumably when saving Word checks the document to ensure it will still be compatible with older versions and this makes saving a long document very slow. The obvious answer would be to convert the document to Word 2013/2016. There is an option to do this but it doesn't solve the problem. I find the answer is to copy the entire text and paste it into a blank document created in Word 2013/2016. Once saved that does solve the problem with slow saves and you still get autosaves backing up your document.

Thanks Brother. I also had a problem like that. But now it has been fully recovered. Your this article made me free of tension.

I endorse Easytherm's solution. I gave up with Office 2013 and upgraded to Office 2016. Word 2016 now behaves like Word 2010. It repaginates faster ( possibly 64 bit program) and works like a dream.

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

2016-07-06T16:16:55+00:00
Wondering if anyone knows, would Word's buggy issues like those described in this thread (slowness copy-pasting, saving, etc., particularly with long, complex documents) be affected at all by factors like the computer's
- processor type and speed?
- amount of RAM?
- storage space free?
- whether hard drive is disk vs. the newer SSD format?
- etc.
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Anonymous

2016-06-02T19:26:02+00:00

Despite its label, Word does NOT have a copy function which uses the source formatting; it does use it only if every style in the original is also present for the copy. This was a terrible design decision, there being no reason why the copy function can't just use the source formatting without qualifications. I cannot assign a style to all my complex tables. Another miserable screwup is the omission of a Protect mode or a style (applied to an arbitrary selection) which says "Don't change this." I've lost count of the number of tables that Word has changed without my permission.

MS should spend some $ and turn Word into a (nearly) bug-free, properly designed, professional app. It's currently far from it. Before they do that they should inquire of their users for a change.
Was this answer helpful?

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Anonymous

2016-06-02T18:33:59+00:00

Unfortunately disabling background saves is neither desirable nor a complete solution to the problem. The same problem re-occurs in Word 2016 and appears to be one which MS can't replicate and which therefore doesn't exist. perhaps if they tested this on a slower machine with a slower internet connection they might find it does exist.

I find the problem occurs when a document is created using an older version of Word and is edited in Compatibility mode. Presumably when saving Word checks the document to ensure it will still be compatible with older versions and this makes saving a long document very slow.

The obvious answer would be to convert the document to Word 2013/2016. There is an option to do this but it doesn't solve the problem.

I find the answer is to copy the entire text and paste it into a blank document created in Word 2013/2016. Once saved that does solve the problem with slow saves and you still get autosaves backing up your document.
Was this answer helpful?

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Anonymous

2016-06-02T15:48:11+00:00

Thanks Brother.

I also had a problem like that. But now it has been fully recovered.

Your this article made me free of tension.
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Anonymous

2016-03-31T23:49:57+00:00

I endorse Easytherm's solution. I gave up with Office 2013 and upgraded to Office 2016. Word 2016 now behaves like Word 2010. It repaginates faster ( possibly 64 bit program) and works like a dream.
Was this answer helpful?

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