Office 365 (Excel) buggy and slow!

January 2017...

I just got a brand-new iMac 21.5” Retina (2015 model) running Sierra with upgraded specs for my photography business (3.3 gHz i7 processor, 16gb RAM, 1 TB SATA drive). I upgraded from a 2012 Macbook Pro with a 2.5 gHz i5 processor and 16gb RAM (the RAM was upgraded by me aftermarket). On the MBP I had an old copy of Office 2008 for Mac, which was working just fine albeit lacking new features. I installed it on my new iMac and to my dismay it was not compatible with the huge Retina display (pixelated UI) so I reluctantly purchased Office 365 download version. I uninstalled and deleted all Microsoft files from the 2008 version before installing the new one on the iMac. When I finally got it installed, I loaded up my financial record spreadsheet to do my taxes, which is about 6 pages long and one page worth of columns. It has no complicated formatting besides some currency cell formatting, and no formulas (Office 2008 for Mac did not support formulas). As far as spreadsheets go it is fairly simple. I never had issues with this file or any Excel files on my MBP. I was running an older OS X (10.8 Mountain Lion) on the MBP because “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” Anyways, I had my spreadsheet in Page View and scrolling up and down is a nightmare. The entire sheet goes blank white, it has a several-second delay when trying to scroll, random parts of the grid lines disappear, I can’t click and select certain cells though can usually use the arrow keys to get there, all the buttons on the menu ribbon are slow to react to a click, and some of the cells and grid lines randomly turn a highlighted yellow color! It’s nearly unusable. I resorted to using pen and paper to add up my values. What I did NOT yet try was switching it to Normal View (instead of Page View). I will try to play with it tonight as I see that seems to fix it for some people on another forum. I asked some friends who said they use the same program with Sierra and they use it in Normal view with no problems. I did go on Microsoft’s instant chat with a tech person and he said supposedly there is an issue with Office being slow on OS Sierra and they are “working on it.” I am naturally skeptical. I briefly tried Word and it seemed just slightly slow but not jumpy and buggy. Thankfully I did not uninstall Office 2008 from my MBP so I can still use that when necessary, but I paid $100 for the multi-device license to Office 365 so I’m angry.

At the same time I decided to update my MBP to Sierra, and am sort of regretting that. It looks funny and is slower. I'll see if the speed improves after a few days since it's probably still re-linking for Spotlight. But it doesn't look as clear and sharp as Mountain Lion did. I updated it because Office 365 said it isn't compatible for OS versions earlier than 10.10 and wanted to install it on the MBP too but now I might not unless this buggy issue is fixed.