This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
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.
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:
A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
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.
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.
OK. Crossing my fingers... I combined several possible solutions and it SEEMS to have gotten a lot better.
Running Version 15.13.1 on a 2015 MacBook Pro Retina 2.5GHz, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD drive, Yosemite (but also see the problem on El Capitan beta!).
I'm working with a 300 page document in five sections: 1st one in portrait mode, the last 4 in landscape mode. All sections have "DRAFT" watermark and the same header, but different footers. Lots of text and images included in cells in tables with much customized formatting.
I tried each of the following individually:
(1) Convert document to remove "compatibility mode" messages. No noticeable difference.
(2) Switching WORD to 32-bit mode. No noticeable difference.
(3) Turned off BOTH spell checking AND grammar checking. No noticeable difference.
I DID finally get a CONSIDERABLE amount of relief by using (2) and (3) together. (1) doesn't seem to make much difference. Even with these changes, rapidly scrolling from bottom to top or vice versa causes Word 2016 to eat up 100% (actually 103.7%!!) of the CPU for a few seconds.
I'm going to TRY operating this way for a week or so and see how it goes.
John: Thanks for that thoughtful response.
I did run Activity Monitor and there doesn't seem to be any other program or app that is causing the jerkiness -- run Word alone, turn off any default apps, etc.
What DOES work, so far anyway, is copying everything (except last paragraph mark) from old documents created in MS Office 2011 and pasting them into a new Word 365 for Mac document. I was working with a 150-page document chock-full of graphics and tables that was impossible to use when opened from the original in 365. Once I copy-pasted to a new one, everything worked as expected, except headers/footers, which had issues. It's still a pain because you have to fix all the other formatting, but I created a couple of templates to copy into, and that helped.
I have been on vacation (a week without a computer, for the first time in YEARS! :-) so haven't had time to play with other older Word documents to really test this copy-paste thing and see if it works in all cases. Nevertheless, this is a work-around. And, nevertheless, it should not be happening.
I'm having other issues with headers and footers that I didn't have before. And I'm still really miffed that we don't have toolbar customization yet. A work-around posted in the forum helps: Set up keyboard shortcuts. For example, I use "select object" a lot, and just make a keyboard shortcut for that.
Meantime, I suggest others try the copy-paste solution and report outcomes. I'd be interested to hear results.
Cheers,
Caroline
"Frustrating" ?
Sheer incompetence…
Compared to Apple, I'm on El Capitan bêta since 4 months.
Works like a real world system. So few bugs… Micro$oft will never learn.
For a while, I thought the CPU / Energy problem with the latest update was fixed, but it is not.
Back to Word 2011.
So frustrating.