Excel for mac 2008 slow?

James J

James J

James J

Soldato
Joined
4 Dec 2002
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Is it just me or is this program insanely slow to use? It's even sluggish when launching the program compared to the others which are nice and quick lol. I've got the latest 13 inch MBP so spec isn't the issue so whys it so damn slow? I'm guessing poor coding?

Due to this I'm looking at other office based software for the mac. Just downloaded the trial of iWork 09 and it seems nice and nippy plus quite easy to use.

Anyone using excel 08 and actually have it running faster than a disabled snail?
 
Iwork is great. Numbers should be fine for most home use. It doesn't have all of Excel's functionality though, so if you need more advanced features you may be disappointed.

Could try running Office for Windows in Virtualbox?
 
I dont need to use excel a lot of the time to be honest. I've got a field trips results to put in table format but word for mac 08 uses excel for the table results which is retardedly slow. Excel by itself is also stupidly slow. Just had a play with numbers and it does exactly what I want it to do. The only thing is, can the information in the numbers program be used in publisher (on a pc of course) if I save it in the excel format?
 
James J said:
I dont need to use excel a lot of the time to be honest. I've got a field trips results to put in table format but word for mac 08 uses excel for the table results which is retardedly slow. Excel by itself is also stupidly slow. Just had a play with numbers and it does exactly what I want it to do. The only thing is, can the information in the numbers program be used in publisher (on a pc of course) if I save it in the excel format?
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I've not done it myself, but I can't see why not.
 
I've never found any of the Office:Mac apps particularly speedy, but I think that's just to do with the software. I've never seen it any different on other macs, certainly.

It's manageable.
 
It is ridiculously slow, sadly. It's even more painful than Office 2004 for Mac was.

I, too, have a 13'' MBP with a good spec and I've had to resort to running Office 2007 in my VM for "intensive" spreadsheets (anything with over 1000 rows, really).
It's depressing when a virtualised Office 2007, as horrific as I find it usually, is preferable to Office 2008 for Mac running natively. :(
 
That sounds like bad news, I've bought Office 2008 for Mac on its way for my Macbook (also on its way). Before I crack the seals, shall I send it back and get iWork do you reckon?
 
Office 08 on mac for some reason is just poor, they dont do any of it in the same way it works within windows (mainly referencing for one of my uni essays)...

I ended up having to boot camp it as i forgot i had vurtual box which would ahve solved the problem nicely... (all hail bootcamp/vutualbox working properly)
 
JKD said:
That sounds like bad news, I've bought Office 2008 for Mac on its way for my Macbook (also on its way). Before I crack the seals, shall I send it back and get iWork do you reckon?
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entourage, word and powerpoint work really nicely and as they should, its just excel I have major problems with usability wise. I only paid £8.95 for my office for mac software (NHS discount) so I can't complain too much!

Trying iWork 09 out myself, the numbers program is abit simple compared to excel if your using massive spreadsheets but otherwise its rather good, plus it opens office files
 
Recently had to use Excel for a lab report and found it painful, even copy and paste has a 5s lag. Speed wasn't my only issue with it though, they seem to have nurfed the charting wizard so you can't really do technical graphs, I guess they decided the Mac market just wanted pretty bar charts...

I ended up using Excel 2000 in VMWare and it was great, I've now got the 2010 Office Beta which I'll use in boot camp next time.
 
How is is slow?

It loads in 6 seconds here, 8 seconds for numbers. I copied a complicated formula in both down to 1200 rows and it was comparable on both.

Not trolling, actually wondering.
 
Slow is the wrong word. It's no speed-freak but I think "Nerfed" is a better description.

It's nothing on Office 2007.
 
meghatronic said:
How is is slow?

It loads in 6 seconds here, 8 seconds for numbers. I copied a complicated formula in both down to 1200 rows and it was comparable on both.

Not trolling, actually wondering.
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Lag on entering data into any cells even on a blank worksheet. Even clicking on document theme takes a good few seconds to actually pop up and the animation is bugged to hell of the box dropping down. The entire program just looks like one massive memory leak. Really poor coding
 
Well I had a bit of a bake off between the eval copies of iWork 09 and Office 2008. Word is fine (if a little different from Office 2007 on PC), but Excel really is a bag of old spanners - I can't believe they released this pisch.

Pages is pretty simplistic but flies along. Does all my sections, headings and TOC stuff, so I've bagged an ultra cheap copy of iWork and returning the unopened Mac Office. The 70 quid saved will buy me 4GB RAM!!
 
James J said:
Lag on entering data into any cells even on a blank worksheet. Even clicking on document theme takes a good few seconds to actually pop up and the animation is bugged to hell of the box dropping down. The entire program just looks like one massive memory leak. Really poor coding
Click to expand...
Hmmmm. Can not replicate issues. Odd.
 
I always found Excel a bit slow but it was never as slow as that. I am quite happy not to have the Office suite installed on the system any more though.
 
Thought I'd update my thread. Found a FIX

Seems theres a problem with excels latest version in page layout view if you have a HP printer driver installed on your macbook. Way around this without uninstalling your printer is to use normal view instead and go into excel preferences and tell it to open also in normal view instead of page layout. Works very quickly and smoothly then!

0 complaints from me since I discovered this
 
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