Excel for Mac Running Very slow

Hello All

I was pulling my hair out because of this problem, and was particularly annoyed because the older version of Excel runs fast, but of course it can't open the new .xlsx files. I wanted to upgrade because I also use Excel at work on a PC and I love the ribbon.

I have found the answer and it's pretty obvious when you think about it...

Turn off all the "Microsoft Knows Best" automatic checking that Excel (and Word and Powerpoint) do. Not just the font menu thing, but EVERYTHING in the preferences that does something "automatically".

The only thing I left on automatic was the "autosave" feature.

Now excel runs as fast as it's Windows counterpart.

Chris

Hope this can help someone. My husband's Excel on his Macbook Air (he uses Chrome browser) all of a sudden slowed so much it was unusable. Switching to Safari didn't help. We remembered he had loaded some video files from a thumb drive (which ran well) 2 days ago, and thought maybe those files included some type of add-on extensions to make those files run, but perhaps bogged down his Excel. So he went onto Chrome> Preferences>Extensions, and deselected all the extensions listed (which included some video add-ons). He then restarted the computer and his Excel worked again.

The previous suggestions about repairing fonts, installing Ariel and Calibri fonts, and reinstalling office make sense.

If those attempts don't work for you, here's what worked for me.

I found a background application accessing the clipboard, in my case it was LaunchBar. This application has a Clipboard History setting, which I disabled. This resolved my excel performance issues. There are other applications that access the clipboard, if you have one running then it could be the cause.

Thanks a lot Torasama. 🙂🙂🙂

In addition to your solution, I did the following. That also helped improving speed with Excel.

System Preferences

> Security & Privacy

> Privacy Tab

> Accessibility (on left menu)

> Disable any 3rd party apps that have certain controls over your computer

That solution was found at Microsoft Excel for Mac is SO SLOW - Microsoft Community

Hi,

I have tried most of what you offered: checked my fonts, moved them to the desktop, opened a new user and nothing works! Excel is moving very slowly, and its extremely frustrating.

I have noticed some of you mentioned: font suitcase fusion 4. Since its an extension, I don't know if I have it or not. I don't deal with my fonts, as I am simply a PhD student, but can I have it on my mac anyway? And if so, how do I get there and remove it?

If you have any other solutions for this problem, will be happy to hear.

Thanks

The version of MS Office you don't mention. In any case post to the MS support:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/support

Excel is up to version 14.1.2. Perhaps you haven't applied updates.

I have 14.1.2 as well, and it's very sllloooowww......

I just found this, did it, and it worked a treat!

Try turning off WYSIWYG font menus. The way I know to do this is:

exit all Office apps

run Word

Word menu: Preferences...

click the General section

deselect "WYSIWYG font and style menus"

Exit Word, then launch Excel and see if it made a difference. Might not help, but it's worth a try, especially if you have lots of fonts.

http://ask.metafilter.com/119081/Why-is-Excel-so-incredibly-slow-on-my-Mac

I cannot believe how slow Excel is on Mac... my overall Mac experience has been a disaster as well... wish I'd stuck to PCs..

It's so slow in fact, I can't even use it - not happy

Macbook Pro 2011

No, turning off WYSWYG doesn't help in any way. I have the same problem with Excel and am hoping for an answer. I have 14.1.0 and I haven't upgraded as yet due to the ongoing problem with the latest Office update from Microsoft.

I've been experiencing painfully slow response times with Office 2011 as well. I tried turning of WYSWYG and it helped! Response times are now pretty much instant. Thanks for the info!

Excel 2011 is horrible slow. If I use Office 2003 on a virtual environment running Win7 on my brand new MBP17" it's lot lot faster. Same picture if I use OpenOffice - a sheet with 40.000 line scrolls very well, on Excel 2011 it takes a second per line to scroll through the whole document...