MS Word lagging on 2020 Apple M1 MacBook Pro

Anonymous

EDIT: I uninstalled and reinstalled Word as an older version (16.84) and Word works perfectly well.

I have an Apple MacBook Pro M1 chip from late 2020. It works perfectly well. However, Word starts lagging when I use it for a few minutes. This is not an issue with my computer – all other programmes work perfectly well while Word is lagging.

I tried uninstalling Word and reinstalling it, but this problem has persisted. I have closed all other apps bar Word, but Word still lags. I have also tried moving documents out of my OneDrive folder so they weren't being autosaved onto the cloud, but the lag persisted. Running Activity Monitor on Mac does not show excessive strain on Memory, CPU etc. from Word.

I recently installed an update, and I wonder whether this is the cause? Stumped as to how to fix this issue.

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Anonymous

2024-10-06T02:15:12+00:00

Could you help me I have similar problem, it has been going for months. I have an M1 Max with 64Gb or RAM.

Every single edit I do, i have a spinning loading after long wait i can work again for few seconds and then same issue. it is impossible to work under this situation. I am writing my Thesis dissertation for a Phd and I cannot use this software no matter what,

I reinstalled multiple times, updated word, ios and this issue is the same.

Thanks
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Anonymous

2024-10-06T05:04:41+00:00

Yes no improvement at all. Just little when updating software, but then it started doing again the same.
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Anonymous

2024-10-06T05:07:09+00:00

Which software was running before May. i experiened this issue since March, I tought it was not compatibility with ARM processor, but I installed teh ARM specific software and it is the same thing.
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Anonymous

2024-10-07T09:01:24+00:00

Hi,

Before May is was version 16.84 and that worked fine. It's when I updated that it went wrong for me, so managed to go back to the 16.84 version after a few weeks. Im not sure what ARM is, sorry, so cannot help there. I have to deliver my phd thesis at the end of Nov, so Im not updating until after its submitted. If I were you I'd uninstall your Word version and buy the earlier one and install that but turn updates off, that should get you through your phd at least.

Hope that helps.
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Anonymous

2024-10-07T22:31:28+00:00

Ihave Version 16.89. How do you downgrade to 16.84?, I am not able to find a way.

All MAC after 2021 change processor from Intel to ARM. M1, M2, M3 .... etc. I think the issue is compatibility with these processors. I dont know if people using Word i a Mac with Intel still faces same problem. There has been compatibility issues in many other softwares usually. ARM usually emulates an Intel processor and work that way, however new packages were developed specifically for ARM processors and the performance is way better than for Windows. I was facing lag issues very similar in the past with Matlab once I started using my M1 Max until they developed ARM specific software which has been working amazingly good. Some software provides the option to chose between Intel or Arm for installing software for Mac.

Which computer do you have?

Thanks I will try to install that version

This is my activity monitor CPU, sometimes says not responding or it is with %CPU 100 or more.

I was successfully able to downgrade to 16.84, however it is still very slow to use. It does not get stuck like the 16.89. However the performance is very bad anyways.
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