Word 2016 Cursor movement slow, jumpy, laggy, erratic, stuttering in some documents

Anonymous
2015-07-13T06:29:26+00:00

It is impossible to edit some documents because of VERY slow, jerky, jumpy, laggy, erratic, stuttering cursor movement (horizontal worse than vertical). I have been forced to go back to using Word 2011. I am a professional novelist and cannot practice my trade with Word 2016!! This is very disappointing.

As a novelist I work with large word count simply formatted documents with a file size of less than 1M. I have not experimented to find a cut off point with regard to word count but documents in the 100K word size or more (less than 1M file size) exhibit this slow, jerky, laggy cursor movement problem. Small documents in the 5K word range do not have this problem on any of my notebooks.

It can take 10 seconds or more to move the cursor from the right to left side of the page (or vice-versa). This slow erratic cursor movement is especially troubling when trying to select a few words (highlighting them) for editing. It is very frustrating. 

I have experimented and found that brand new documents in 2016 file format exhibit this problem. I have created documents with zero text formatting and they have this problem. I removed all formatting in these test documents by copying and pasting ASCII text into the newly created 2016 format doc from original Word 2011 documents.

I have replicated this same problem on three different macbook computers all with SSD and max ram. None of these computers are running with more than 5% CPU utilization (running nothing else except Word 2016). All of these notebook computers edit the same files just fine using Word 2011.

  • Brand new 2015 macbook 12" retina
  • 2013 Macbook Pro 13" retina
  • 2013 Macbook Air

Track changes is not turned on, nor is any other unusual "feature" or function. This problem occurs in all display modes: draft, layout, etc.

**All these notebooks are running the latest version of Yosemite and all with 100% up to date software.

**This is a fatal mission-critical problem for me which has forced me to revert back to using Word 2011. Again, this is very disappointing.**I have been a Word user for something over 25 years (started on MS/PC DOS).

Similar / same problems here:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2016-macword/office-2016-mac-very-laggy/e2656073-6f1b-4535-b78e-ee79e0a4fb4c

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2016-macword/word-2016-laggy-ui-and-scrolling-issues/9de4aeb7-9058-4fb0-a331-72076fed72b2

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2016-macword/performance-of-scrolling-in-word-2016-for-mac-is/f04bbc86-5753-4ef5-a2c3-5cfdcb8cb837

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Anonymous
2016-12-14T20:46:25+00:00

I confirm quitting Dropbox solves that ridiculous M$oft lag for me.

But Bill Gates just put 1 billion in SoftBank so all bugs will be gone.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-07-15T00:26:43+00:00

    Hello Kevin, 

    Thank you for reporting this issue. I'm on the Mac Word engineering team and I wanted to let you know that we're looking in to it -- you've provided some great detail to help narrow this down. If we have any follow up questions for you, I hope you don't mind if we contact you. 

    Thanks, 

    Derik

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-07-15T02:22:51+00:00

    Hi Derik,

    I'd be pleased to help in anyway... and thank you for letting me know you are working to figure this out.

    Thanks,

    Kevin

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-07-20T14:32:36+00:00

    If this is not TOP priority for M$oft development tams, I suggest they move to another industry : used car salesmen maybe ?

    Really still Ballmerized, aren't they

    Exactly the same problem here, making W2016 a no-go.

    With a 2015 Retina 15,4" top specs all software to date and basic setup with no hacks or bells and whistles hampering system

    Same with an iMac 2014 top specs all soft to date

    Several users on this forum have opened similar threads.

    Now reverted to W2011, less buggy.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-07-27T18:53:37+00:00

    Every day I check if there's an Office 2016 update...

    I'm in the same position as the writer of this post. I'm also a (french) novelist. All my documents are simple but long. Even then, the same problems occurs with a new document in Word 2016. I just can't use it. 

    I've tried every solutions proposed here. None worked. 

    It's a Microsoft problem. Not a Mac problem.

    I still have Office 2011 on my MacBook Air mid2012. 

    I've paid for Office 365 and it's very frustrating not to be able to work with the latest Office, as it looks way better. And I love the bookmark thing when you open your document so you can go to where you where last time you opened it. 

    Since then, I've been looking at Pages, from Mac iWork. I miss some Word features, but at least it works.

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