slow spreadsheet in numbers

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Level 1

29 points

slow spreadsheet in numbers

I only have four Numbers spreadsheets but one is uncomplicated but long; it has about 2400 lines. Some weeks ago it became very, very slow. If I click, the machine is slow to respond; if I type, the data appears 15 seconds of so later. I have read that this has been a problem with Apple for a number of years, but have they come up with a solution? I have a IMAC OS X 10.6.8, the processor is 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, memory is 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SCRAM. I have used the disk utility first aid and the problem does not seem to be there. Another community has asked me questions. My capacity reads 250 GB. Under "untitled" it says capacity is 249.72 GB and it states 212.67 is "space free". Page ins are 1.36 GB and page outs are 127.6 MB. I did a disk utility and everything shows ok. In another are it shows page ins are 182.3 MB and page outs are 0 bytes. Everything else on my IMAC works perfectly except for this one spreadsheet. In Activity Monitor I am showing "free" 292.3 MB. No app is using a high percentage of CPU. Numbers is using 106.1 real memory and 72.9 virtual memory.I went into safe mode and that did not alleviate the problem. When I take the cursor into my spreadsheet and click it transforms from a white cross to a hand to a coatrack. It has been suggest that this problem is caused by the fact that my system shows less than 500 MB of RAM. Again, when I click "about this mac" it shows memory is 2 GB 667 MHz. Is this an ongoing problem with Apple Numbers' software or can it be made to work?

IMAC, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Oct 4, 2011 10:20 PM

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Answer 1

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,807 points

Oct 5, 2011 12:59 AM in response to doug Davies

Hello

I run an iMac with 12 Gb of 1333 MHz Ram

and a processor Core i7 2.8 GHz

and, when I run my most often used spreadsheet with two tables,

one 4 x 11 cells

one 12 x 281 cells

I'm always waiting that it finish its duty when I insert a value.

When I insert a row, it eat 100% of one of the available cores.

As long as the app will not be entirely redesigned, we will get this awful behavior.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mercredi 5 octobre 2011 09:58:41

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

My iDisk is : <http://public.me.com/koenigyvan>

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Answer 2

doug Davies Author

Level 1

29 points

Oct 5, 2011 11:08 AM in response to KOENIG Yvan

You have commented on this issue a number of times in the past. I was hoping that Apple might have fixed this issue but {as you have commented} it may not be possible based on the faulty software design. I asked this question in another Apple Forum and was given a variety of suggestions and none of them were helpful. The reason for my question is this: if there is a solution, great. If not, I would like everyone to know not to spend hours trying to fix an insolvable problem as I have done.

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Answer 3

Oct 5, 2011 11:19 AM in response to doug Davies

When you look at memory (while things are slow) use the applicaiton Activity Monitor (in /Applications/Utilities) to look at the memory usage of your machine.

The important thing is how much is free:

If the Free memory is very low applications will run slow because they have to swap applications in and out of RAM very often. I find, often, that Safari and Firefox take more and more memory as time passes. So I quit them when I see that. As you can see in my post here Firefox is using almost 400M of memory

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Answer 4

doug Davies Author

Level 1

29 points

Oct 5, 2011 12:15 PM in response to Wayne Contello

With Safari in I show 684 MB free. When Safari is on it shows it takes 122 real memory and 235 virtual memory. Without Safari on I show that I have 816.5 MB free. That one spreadsheet is slow with Safari on or not. I rarely use Firefox.

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Answer 5

Oct 5, 2011 12:21 PM in response to doug Davies

Not trying to imply that any particular application is the problem just suggesting it could be a low memory problem. If you have more than 100Meg of RAM free then I doubt that is the problem.

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Answer 6

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,807 points

Oct 5, 2011 12:24 PM in response to doug Davies

We have no way to change the app behavior.

Header columns are well reported efficient brakes but in the document which I described in my late message I don't use header columns.

When it's open, Pages eat 160 Mbytes among the 12 Gbytes installed. Even with such free space, it eat 118 Mbytes of virtual memory (Hard Disk space).

Among the 12 columns, only 7 contain formulas. Others contain typed values.

This document is the Numbers version of one which I used for years in AppleWorks.

With this coelacanthus, I was able to keep 5 years of datas (about 1500 rows) and I never wait the app.

The Numbers version treats only one year because with more, it's unbearable.

The Appleworks designers coded with their brains, the Numbers ones code with their feet.

Honestly, if I wasn't interested to help here, I would have keep 1.6.8 as my main operating system to be able to work with AppleWorks.

Here are the formulas:

column E

=OFFSET(A280,-1,4)-C280+D280

column F

=ROW()-2+$F$2

column H

=IF(ISBLANK(G280),"",IF(C280,C280,""))

column I

=IF(ISBLANK(G280),"",IF(ISBLANK(D280),"",D280))

column J

=IF(ISBLANK(G280),"",K280)

column K

=OFFSET(K280,-1,0)+IF(LEN(H280)>0,-H280,0)+IF(LEN(I280)>0,I280,0)

column L

=IF(ISBLANK(G280),"",G280)

Really ,nothing fancy.

I hope that, thanks to iOS, the next version will be more efficient.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mercredi 5 octobre 2011 21:22:59

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

My iDisk is : <http://public.me.com/koenigyvan>

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Answer 7

doug Davies Author

Level 1

29 points

Oct 10, 2011 8:18 PM in response to KOENIG Yvan

I had read of Yvan Koenig's solution to this problem and had hoped Apple might have somehow alleviated the problem. Sadly, this has not occured nor is it likely to be. I want to propose a possible solution to my issue: is it possible to divide my one spreadsheet into two spreadsheets {a-l and m-z} without having to re-copy half of my entries? If it is and you can tell me how, please respond.

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Answer 8

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,807 points

Oct 11, 2011 10:00 AM in response to doug Davies

Assuming that your table is in sheet "Sheet 1"

Duplicate this Sheet and rename the replicate from "Sheet 1-1" to "Sheet 2"

This way, you will have towo copies of your datas.

In the table embedded in sheet "Sheet 1" delete the rows containing datas from m to z.

In the table embedded in sheet "Sheet 2" delete the rows containing datas from a to 1.

You will benefit of a Numbers feature. As we can't have tables of different sheets on screen together, the app will behave faster than if the two halves were in a single sheet.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 11 octobre 2011 19:00:36

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

My iDisk is : <http://public.me.com/koenigyvan>

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Answer 9

doug Davies Author

Level 1

29 points

Nov 7, 2011 8:11 PM in response to KOENIG Yvan

The bottom line on this is that Numbers has inate software limitations and can only accept so many lines of data. Yvan Koenig is correct. I solved my problem {his suggestion} by dividing my spreadsheet into two. Everything now works perfectly. I wish Apple made public the limitations of their Numbers software. It would have saved me {and maybe a lot more people} a whole lot of time and trouble. Doug Davies

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Answer 10

doug Davies Author

Level 1

29 points

Mar 26, 2012 10:07 AM in response to KOENIG Yvan

As you may remember, I had the "slow" problem with a very long table and at your suggestion I divided it into two tables. This has worked well. In a later thread entitled "slow spreadsheet using numbers" Ivan suggested this slowness could be eliminated by changing the font from Helvetica Neue to Helvetica. I recombined my tables and now all slowness is gone. This does not seem logical to me. Can you think of any rational explanation as to what is going on?

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