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Windows Microsoft office 2016 runs slow and hangs

Discussion in 'Software' started by silk186, 9 Apr 2017.

  1. silk186

    silk186 Derp

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    My issue is with Microsoft office 2016 and how to make it more stable and responsive. My system isn't that new any more, but should be enough for Word.

    i5-2500k @4.3
    16GB DDR 1866
    256GB Samsun 830 SSD +3x 3TB HDD
    Windows 10 64 edu

    Word 2016 with ad-on for Mendeley.
    I don't have as much trouble with one chapter, but now with 2 chapters 48 pages, 21k words with hangs a lot.
    Of coures I could remove Mendeley but I already have 8 pages of references and would not want to do them by hand.
    It can be especially slow now when adding a reference, hanging for half a minute.

    Both pieces of software are installed on the SSD and are up to date. What can I do to increase responsiveness without upgrading to a whole new system and adding an M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD?

    I can work on a separate file for each chapter but this is not ideal.
     
  2. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

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    Can you disable Mendeley, even temporarily? I'd wager that's what's causing it to fall over.

    I ran Office 2016 on system considerably slower than yours without a pick of bother.

    EDIT: Try the 64-bit version of Word
     
  3. silk186

    silk186 Derp

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    i can remove the plug-in, but as i need to reference everything it would not be a good solution.

    EDIT: I checked, it is the 64-bit version
     
    Last edited: 9 Apr 2017
  4. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

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    What can you do really. If the add-on is causing you problems then you need to either live with the problems or find an alternative referencing system. At the very least you should disable the add-on to confirm that it is indeed your problem. Given the size of your thesis at two chapters, I would start looking for an alternative way to implement references. Consider this the voice of experience here telling you that you don't want to deal with tools issues when you are trying to write and submit a thesis/dissertation.

    Personally, if I were to ever write a thesis again it would be done with VIM plus Latex plus the referencing tool.
     
  5. silk186

    silk186 Derp

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    I found a thread on the Mendeley support forums with many PhD students complaining. It seems to be a recent issue with the word plug-in.

    VIM plus Latex looks like it would be a lot of work to learn. It also seems to be lacking a lot of tools word that I've learned to use over the years. I could switch from Mendeley to Zotero, but I like Mendeleys management of PDFs. Endnote is probably solid but is not cheap.
     
  6. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

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    FWIW I used Zotero and the in-built tools in word for my university dissertations...

    ...not that should be any kind of ringing endorsement as

    a: it was awhile ago
    b: my uni essays and dissertations were... on the short side... [My final year dissertation didn't even come remotely close to hitting the minimum word count... there's only so many ways you can write '**** all is going to change...']
     
  7. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

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    Yes it is a lot of work to learn. But I wouldn't look at a WYSIWYG word processor again for something like what you are undertaking in order to avoid exactly the kind of problem you are currently experiencing. Big documents (and weird addons) can really affect the performance of a word processor. Once you have a Latex template for whatever format you are writing in (which likely exits already) it is relatively straight forward.

    Well first I would see if you could download an old version of the plugin. Failing that, if you have the time, then make the switch to something else. If there were any sort of imminent time constraint, I personally would not rule out throwing money at the problem to make it go away as fast as possible. €60 to make writing a dissertation less painless seems like a deal to me.
     
    Last edited: 10 Apr 2017
  8. silk186

    silk186 Derp

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    I looked into Zotero, data base migration is not too difficult and can be scripted. It doesn't have a built in pdf reader and I would need to redo all references in my thesis.
    The bigger issue is that it won't necessarily resolve my problem:

     
  9. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

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    I looked up the wrong note thing, EndNote is a good bit more expensive than I posted above. Either way it has a free trial so no harm in investigating it.
     

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