Get Numbers to run faster?

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Level 5

5,254 points

Get Numbers to run faster?

I'm trying to use Numbers '09 with a spreadsheet, 9 columns x 13 rows, all text entries, and it is slow. Lags in entering text or in scrolling. I don't like lags. Very disappointing. I tell all the non-mac people I know how much better macs are, and how great the software is, but this is a glaring exception. It's bad. Maybe the one really bad piece of apple software I've ever encountered.

I've searched a bit in this forum and elsewhere on the web and there are numerous comments about how cute Numbers looks but how poorly it performs, and no solutions anywhere.

My mac is a 2 ghz intel core 2 duo mini with 2 gigs of ram and Leopard 10.5.7. My hard drive is 120 gigs and is only one-third full. I do regular maintenance with Applejack and OnyX, my preferences & permissions are all in good order, and I don't have any other apps running. As I try to enter text into Numbers, the CPU usage in the activity monitor goes up to 60-62 percent. I've tried reinstalling Numbers, and the combo 10.5.7 updater, every trick I know. It's still slow.
Before I abandon Numbers and go back to Excel (gag), does anybody have any tricks for getting this to run any faster? I'd especially appreciate answers from people with *actual experience* regarding the topic and my question, as opposed to just an opinion.

mini, Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Jun 17, 2009 4:33 PM

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Answer 1

Brie Fly

Level 5

7,925 points

Jun 17, 2009 5:05 PM in response to arthur

26 columns x 100 rows of text entries = No detectible slowdown

What is special about your array of text entries?

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Answer 2

arthur Author

Level 5

5,254 points

Jun 17, 2009 5:13 PM in response to Brie Fly

There's nothing :special: about it that I can tell. Just text. Not sure if there's some way I can post it for you to see.

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Answer 3

Brie Fly

Level 5

7,925 points

Jun 17, 2009 8:17 PM in response to arthur

Create a brand-new Numbers document. Open your defective one, select the cells that contain text, and copy. Switch to the new document, click on a cell at the upper left, and paste.

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Answer 4

Brie Fly

Level 5

7,925 points

Jun 17, 2009 8:47 PM in response to arthur

Go to your "Sent" mailbox and extract the Numbers file from the e-mail that you sent to me. That file seems fine -- no sluggishness detected.

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Answer 5

Jun 18, 2009 6:16 AM in response to arthur

arthur,

Numbers is not the speediest program in the world, but Numbers 09 is better than Numbers 08 in that regard. Still, the document you described isn't big enough or complex enough to cause a response problem.

When I type into the same size document, populated with plain text, my CPU load for Numbers also goes into the mid-sixties percent range, but with no lag. The computer here is an iMac G5, and I'm not sure how the CPU load would translate.

I get the occasional typing lag in many different programs, but usually for a reason that is identifiable to other OS priorities.

Jerry

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Answer 6

arthur Author

Level 5

5,254 points

Jun 18, 2009 6:31 AM in response to arthur

thanks to all who responded.
I couldn't copy my data and paste into a new spreadsheet. Perhaps because I have some cells merged.
The slowness seems intermittent, or perhaps progressive, the longer I have the document opened. Maybe a memory leak?
Oh well. Back to excel. I feel dirty.

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Answer 7

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,819 points

Jun 18, 2009 7:11 AM in response to arthur

You are perfectly right.

Compared to AppleWorks whose first version for Mac was created in 1991, Numbers is desperatly slow.
I reject the comments which claims that it make more things.
When I install several spreadshet frames in an AppleWorks Draw document, quite all features available in Numbers are available.
The main difference is the way the document is described.
For sure, the one used in AppleWorks is more efficient.

Numbers '09 is not so slow than Numbers '08 was but it continue to be a slow program.
And when I compare speeds, I play the game the fair way.
I compare with AppleWorks set to recalculate on the fly.
If I was using it with the recalculate feature disabled to fasten entries, the gap would be greater.

This is why my important spreadsheets are always in AppleWorks.

Maybe those acustomed to Microsoft products aren't surprised (I can't compare because they aren't allowed on my machines) but for an old AppleWorks user, it's a shame.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE jeudi 18 juin 2009 16:10:57)

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Answer 8

Jun 21, 2009 5:35 AM in response to arthur

G'day
I use numbers to set up pay sheets for my employees on a weekly basis with 53 pages per sheet and up to 60 sheets numbers 08 is very slow to open and exceedingly slow when inputting data and the same when saving or exporting. If I upgrade to 09 am I going to have the same problem,any help with this problem would be appreciated.
The Snagger.

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Answer 9

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,819 points

Jun 21, 2009 5:56 AM in response to The Snagger

Numbers '09, mainly after update v2.0.2, is not so slow than Numbers '08 but it's always mollasses.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE dimanche 21 juin 2009 14:56:24)

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Answer 10

Jun 21, 2009 8:39 PM in response to arthur

Thanks for the reply,took me 1.5 hours this morning to enter one page of data so at the end of our finanical year I am going back to Appleworks 6 even though it doesn't do everything that numbers can.Will wait for next numbers update,hopefully it will be sorted out. Yours The Snagger.

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Answer 11

mac4ever

Level 2

299 points

Sep 3, 2009 6:47 AM in response to The Snagger

I mainly use Numbers for my personal budget. It has a couple of pie charts. The first time I open the budget, it is exceedingly slow to open with the process using 100% of the cpu for quite a while. After several minutes it settles down and performance is acceptable (for me). Therefore, I always keep Numbers open until a restart is required for some reason.

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Answer 12

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,819 points

Sep 3, 2009 6:56 AM in response to mac4ever

During a few days I worked on a sheet with only text datas.
It is 21 columns by about 1100 rows.

Every operation like moving from a column to an other one, applying bold to a cell, searching for a string was desperately long even after removing conditional formatting to spare processor cycles.

I remained in Numbers only because Unicode support was required.
For such a table, AppleWorks is at least ten time faster.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) jeudi 3 septembre 2009 15:55:51

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Answer 13

Leif M.

Level 1

16 points

Sep 22, 2009 8:18 AM in response to KOENIG Yvan

I aggree on all comments made above. Numbers is though A VERY NICE program. I love it quite often and would likte build more larger applications. BUT it is soooooo sloooooooooow (and then my love turns a bit grey).

But tell me you who knows much more. Is there something one can do in the background? I am trying to close down other programs, no Safari, no mail no addressbook and so on. Using Activitycontrol and tries to have free RAM and processor speed left. But it seems like syrup once in a while anywat. To be honest I can't really get the great difference if I turn down the background. But maybe there is some of all the programs in activitycontrol that one could shut down and make Numbers a bit faster?
Cheers
Leif

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Answer 14

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,819 points

Sep 22, 2009 10:04 AM in response to Leif M.

As I often wrote here, launch Activity Monitor before launching Numbers.

You will quickly see that for some tasks, it 'eats' quite all the cycles of the processor so trying to do something else is not a good idea.

I know that a bit of oil is useful for my bicycle but I'm not sure that it would be helpful on the intel processor 😉

_Go to "Provide Numbers Feedback" in the "Numbers" menu_, describe what you wish.
Then, cross your fingers, and wait _at least_ for iWork'10 😉

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 22 septembre 2009 19:04:36

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