Slow Chinese input via pinyin after upgrading to OS X El Capitan

Question

Level 1

25 points

Slow Chinese input via pinyin after upgrading to OS X El Capitan

I used to type Chinese characters via pinyin on OS X Tiger, OS X Leopard and OS X Snow Leopard, and all of the input processes on those previous OS were instant. It was fast and smooth. I upgraded from Snow Leopard to El Capitan on a mid-2010 13'' Macbook Pro, 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of RAM, and suddenly character formation upon pinyin input began to lag. I now have to wait 1 or 2 seconds before the system displays the correct characters. Has anybody found solutions to this problems? Or do I have to downgrade to a previous OS? I type a lot of Chinese characters on my laptop, so it really slows things down. Thank you in advance!

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Mar 16, 2016 7:02 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,216 points

Mar 16, 2016 7:22 AM in response to hanfromnm

DDoes this happen in all apps, including TextEdit, Mail, and Notes?

Reply

Answer 2

hanfromnm Author

Level 1

25 points

Mar 16, 2016 8:53 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thank you for your reply Tom! This is interesting. I just checked.

The input speed in TextEdit is actually instant, as it was in Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard. Then, the speed in Pages'06 (2.0.2) and Mail are tolerable, with a slight lag. Notes are okay too but I can feel the lag. The worst is Page'09 (5.6.1), the lag in forming characters after pinyin input is disruptive, really awkward to use. Real slow.

For those who don't understand where the lag occurs, I'm attaching an image. We type in romanized pronunciation spellings, and all characters matching that pronunciation appear in a small box. We then select the characters we need. It's the appearance of matching characters in that box that's experiencing that time lag.

In the previous OS I mentioned, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, character input across applications have the same instant speed. Real smooth.

Reply

Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,216 points

Mar 16, 2016 10:28 AM in response to hanfromnm

It looks like you are using Pages 4 (also called Pages '09) and not Pages 5.6.1.

Unfortunately I can't test that one, I have moved on to the newer version. The only thing I can think of to cause a slowdown might be a non-Apple font. And there won't be any further fixes or updates to Pages 4.

In Pages 5.6.1 (Pages '13), I don't see any lag in input for Chinese pinyin.

Reply

Answer 4

hanfromnm Author

Level 1

25 points

Mar 16, 2016 6:20 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Sorry I used the wrong screenshot. I have both Pages 2.0.2 and Pages 5.6.1 Here is the one with which I am experiencing the most lag:

It affects both apple fonts and non-apple fonts. None of these fonts exhibited lag or delay in the previous OS I mentioned.

Reply

Answer 5

Mar 16, 2016 6:24 PM in response to hanfromnm

elCapitan has grown larger than previous versions, and sometimes when other Applications are open, you may run out of 4GB of RAM memory. This may start to produce some delays in operations that were previously "instant", especially with larger Applications opened.

Reply

Answer 6

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,216 points

Mar 16, 2016 9:39 PM in response to hanfromnm

You might want to try temporarily deactivating any non-Apple chinese fonts and see if that makes a difference in your Pages performance.

Reply

Answer 7

hanfromnm Author

Level 1

25 points

Mar 17, 2016 2:55 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thanks for your suggestion Tom. I deactivated the few non-Apple fonts I had. It improved speed a little, but there remains a slight lag in Page 5.6.1.

TextEdit is blazing fast, no issue at all. Page 2.0.2 is much better now. I think I'll do most of my work on this previous version of Page for now.

Reply

Answer 8

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,216 points

Mar 17, 2016 6:09 AM in response to hanfromnm

You might want to let apple know that Pages seems to have problems with 3rd party chinese fonts via

http://www.apple.com/feedback

Reply