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Typing lag following Pages 5.2 update

Pages is running so slowly I can’t use it for work. Sentences lag after I type them, sometimes for minutes. Also scrolling lags and skips, and the thumbnails pane is absolutely crazy - it shows overlapping pages, missing pages, etc. The problem seems to be slightly exacerbated in longer documents, but does not seem to affect Word, TextEdit, SublimeText, TeXShop, or other text editors. It is also exacerbated by the general slowness of the computer, which is coming up on five years old now, but the problem is definitely Pages-specific, definitely only started after the update, and it definitely making it totally unusable. I'd really appreciate any advice, even simple stuff.


I've just upgraded to pages 5.2 (as part of the complete iWork update), on a mid-2009 Macbook Pro (running OS X 10.9.2), with a 2.23 GHz processor and 8 GB of RAM.


Thanks so much!

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2009), OS X Mavericks (10.9.2), Pages 5.2

Posted on Apr 9, 2014 6:15 AM

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42 replies

Oct 2, 2017 2:46 AM in response to infinitelyimprobable

Don't know whether to start a new thread - but I'm using Pages 6.3 and have intermittent serious typing lag issues. I can type normally and then (apparently) randomly, the lag makes it unusable. It is one 300+ page document with no footnotes, I don't use "check spelling automatically" - I never had this issue before the update. Using High Sierra on a Macbook at this time. Any updated advice would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Apr 9, 2014 10:11 AM in response to PeterBreis0807

Hey! Thanks for coming along to help. I just went and checked my hard-drive space, and I've got 166 GB still free (I have a 250 GB hard drive). I cleaned the whole thing out last year, and I've kept it relatively clean since then. I installed a second 4GB stick of RAM at the same time.


Ought I to remove the old version of iWork?


Incidentally - I saw some notes that Pages 5.2 is slow with graphical objects and things, so just to clarify: I'm dealing with text-only files, although they're often heavily annotated with comments as well. Could those be slowing it down?


Thanks again


Matt

Apr 9, 2014 10:57 AM in response to infinitelyimprobable

Do a test.


Create a document, with and without the annotated comments and let us know.


I suppose anything that makes Pages work harder could lead to slow downs.


Do not remove the older iWork, that is the good one. In fact test what you are doing in Pages 5.2 against the same thing in Pages '09 and see if that makes a difference.


Another thought, do you have a lot of fonts open or lots of files on your desktop? The later is always a slowdown for OSX which keeps track of them all, ready to open. Try putting those inside a folder on your desktop.


Peter

Apr 9, 2014 12:18 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

Hey again!


So: the whole computer was moving pretty slowly - typing in e.g. an email interface was lagging a little too. Under those conditions, niether removing comments nor switching to Pages 4.3 made any difference, BUT once I rebooted and everything sped up again, switching to Pages 4.3 DID make a difference; comments still had no effect on speed, and both commented and uncommented versions in Pages 5.2 are pretty slow.


I have only one font in te entire document, and a total of two files and one folder on my desktop (if I put the files into the folder, nothing changes).


I should also say that the general slowdown of my whole computer that I mentioned is typically the result of streaming videos online. That seems to mess things up pretty badly until I reboot.


Incidentally, I submitted this as a bug report as well - I assume no one will bother with it, but if they do respond, I'll post the reply here.


Cheers, and thanks again,

Matt

Apr 12, 2014 7:35 AM in response to PeterBreis0807

Hmmm. The slowdown isn't happening at the same time as streaming, it's just that streaming - or even just moderately heavy internet use - causes the whole computer to slow down. Then I close Chrome, turn off wifi, and other applications are fine but Pages stays slow.


Also the Apple iWork team emailed me to ask for more information. I'll let you know if they send anything back!


Cheers
Matt

Apr 21, 2014 3:52 AM in response to infinitelyimprobable

This won't actually help you, but I have the same problem.


In general, my macbook is running flawlessly, so in my case the general perfomance has nothing to do with the Pages issue. Even when Pages 5.2 is the only app open, it get super slow when my documents reaches approx. 10 pages long. Yes, it does include some pictures and some endnote citations.


I wrote a feedback and encourage everyone suffering from the bug to do so. Despite hearing a lot of criticism about the way Apple reacts to feedback, I should say that the 5.2 update included at least 2 features I had complained about.


In terms of features Pages 5.2 is almost ready for decent work (I my case, writing a scientific thesis), but certainly not before they fix this issue.

Apr 22, 2014 12:58 AM in response to infinitelyimprobable

The problem is most probably software specific. I am running OSX 10.9.2 on a rMBP with 16gb or Ram, half a TB of free storage and a 2.6 i7 and typing in pages lags a lot! I was on the phone with apple support UK for over an hour yesterday and they did not have a solution for me but at least they are looking into it. The program was not sucking too much memory and the rest of the computer was running smoothly. The only problem was with typing in pages. The length of the document didn't seem to have a correlation, as opening a new document and filling it with dummy text of up to 3000 words did not cause it to lag, but rather the amount of time I've spent on a document. The technician asked me to disconnect pages from icloud as he thought it could be connected with the constant updating, but this didn't help either. We've tried creating a new user account, testing the document in safe boot, completely removing pages from the system and then reinstalling, removing any plug ins like Endnote's plugin etc but NOTHING helped. And the weird thing is that: it's only typing that's lagging, scrolling, adding graphics, copy pasting and ANY other function would work smoothly... unless you tried to type. Also, the exact same document would have no problem being edited in pages for icloud.


I am surprised as to why there aren't any more people facing this problem allready.

I will keep this post updated with any news from Apple Support.

May 4, 2014 7:58 AM in response to peter-anti

A few more things I have noticed about the bug.

a) It is not very consistent: one document that used to lag before was working normally when I opened it today.

b) Typing in text boxes is not affected and works smoothly.

c) The most interesting things is that after adding a few page breaks at the end (below the bibliography) of a super laggy document I was able to type normally. So I can type at the end of a document, but not in the middle.

d) As noticed before, there is no correlation with the length of the document, and, in my case with the time spent on it.

May 7, 2014 8:23 AM in response to Rapolas Z

Brief update:


I've been finding that the one symptom of this that shows up most often, and in the absence of all of the others, is a malfunctioning autocorrect. It thinks I'm done typing a word when I'm still in the middle of it, and by the time I'm done, it's autocorrected the first half to something else entirely, leaving me with a silly mispelled word. As far as I can tell, it happens unpredictably and irrespective of typing speed.


Cheers

matt

Typing lag following Pages 5.2 update

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