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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.
That was very helpful. I pinned down the problem to the Dropbox badge. I disabled it from the Dropbox preferences and it works perfectly now.
I am the guy that originally started this thread on July 12, 2015... The problems I was experiencing were on a range of Macbook pro and Air notebooks. A couple of months after starting this thread the problems were resolved by a Microsoft upgrade. The cursor movement was never smooth but it was fast.
Sadly, now a year and a half later the problem has returned with the latest upgrade. The cursor movement is again slow and stuttering. This stuttering occurs on 1 page documents as well as 500 page manuscripts. All these documents are basic text, no graphics, and simple formatting. Often if I close the document and reopen it things will work fine for a while then the problem returns. This occurs on a wide range of 5 different mac notebooks (from a 2015 Macbook 12" retina to a 2013 Macbook Retina Pro). This proves the problem is in Word and not something wrong on a specific computer.
I find it particularly disappointing that this problem has resurfaced, and equally disappointing that it obviously has never been fully fixed for all people.
This is helpful to know. There are some reports of speed problems even with current versions of Office. I will start asking about whether or not people are using dropbox when they complain things are slow.
Meanwhile, if you are using the version of Office being discussed in this question, you should update everything right away. Then you can start a new thread if you are still experiencing problems. This thread is way past being relevant, as no one should be on version 15.25 any more.
Make sure your Mac has a working internet connection before checking for updates. Install Mac OS X updates followed by Office updates.
Mac OS X updates:
To get Mac OS updates, go to the App store on your dock, and then click the Updates button to reveal available updates.
Office Updates
To get the update:
Something similar happens to me a lot, ever since I switch to Microsoft 2016.
I have to work in print layout with balloons (showing on the right) because draft layout (comments showing on the left) slows down my cursor to the point that, if it's working, it can take 10 or 15 seconds for each letter I've typed to appear or it's simply freezes, showing the Swirling Ball of Death, and I have to force quit.
I work in documents that have somewhat complicated formatting and many comments.
If I work too long in the comment balloons, either adding to another's comments or simply writing one that's too long, it bumps me over to draft layout, and the problem recurs. If I turn off the balloons and try to work in the document, any time I try to make a comment or view someone else's, it will just bump me into the hellish draft layout.
Whatever changes I haven't saved since the last time I saved are lost. Restarting Word or even restarting the computer doesn't help.
It's a serious bug, and it's killing me.