How can excel/word file open up faster?

[louis2008]

I'm now using OpenOffice, LibreOffice, and Google Word/Sheet (Web version) but they all have a problem, it takes quite a few seconds (on average 6-7 seconds) to open up and load a file, it's really painful and annoying, especially when I have to deal with a lot of different files every day.

I'm on high-speed stable broadband so I think it's not the problem of internet speed, my CPU is i5 as well, and 8GB RAM, which should be more than enough.

Is there any way to solve this problem? Or it just always takes time to open any word or excel files so there is no way to get the problem solved?

 

[ocnbrze]

are you accessing it online? or is it downloaded onto your computer?

 

[svim]

Try opening those Excel and Word files up in MS Office and save them as ODF format files (i.e. .odt for text or .ods for spreadsheet) and see if that speeds up how fast they open in using LibreOffice. Don't forget that MS Office is a proprietary, closed source program and you're using non-native apps and a non-native online service to open up those files. It's not just the file access time, there's converting and re-processing involved. Microsoft's has a spotty record on making its proprietary Office document code available to other platforms so all workarounds involve a lot of compromises to avoid MS's stable of lawyers from a lawsuit. That's not a trivial task.
Do your MS files typically include a lot of scripts and macros? That will add a lot of extra time to open a file.

 

[Dannydet]

Svim, you nailed it with your answer.
The conversion process alone is the culprit here...

 

[mikedt]

I'm now using OpenOffice, LibreOffice, and Google Word/Sheet (Web version) but they all have a problem, it takes quite a few seconds (on average 6-7 seconds) to open up and load a file, it's really painful and annoying, especially when I have to deal with a lot of different files every day.

I'm on high-speed stable broadband so I think it's not the problem of internet speed, my CPU is i5 as well, and 8GB RAM, which should be more than enough.

Is there any way to solve this problem? Or it just always takes time to open any word or excel files so there is no way to get the problem solved?

I assume you're using some version of Windows? Our school Lenovo classroom PCs running Win7 can take well over 30 seconds to open Doc and PPT files. But on the other hand my new MacBook Pro with the M1(ARM64) processor takes less than a second to open the same files in LibreOffice.

Our classroom Win7 PCs are absolutely filled with junk software, and some have viruses as well. Probably only ways to make it faster, is try cleaning your Windows system, or maybe even re-install it. Or upgrade to a faster PC? Does your PC use a hard-drive or an SSD for storage? Because that can certainly make a great difference in loading times.

 

[Hadron]

How old is the computer? You say it has an i5, but Intel have been calling different chips "i5" for over a decade now, and a ten year old one is a very different beast from a new one.

Are these large spreadsheets or is it like this for any spreadsheet? What sort of disk drive do you have? Does the 6-7 seconds include opening the app or is that already running?

Most likely the format conversion is a big factor here, just considering others that might be relevant (a slow disk and large sheets for example would be a factor both locally and online). Does the computer lag in other respects, or is it just spreadsheet loading?

 

[mikedt]

FWIW I don't usually use LibreOffice or OpenOffice, mainly because they choke on the embedded videos some of my PPT presentations. The same PPTs that open and play just fine in MS PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, and WPS Office. Also there's formatting problems in LibreOffice/OpenOffice Impress when opening some of my PPTs, especially when my slides have mixed English and Chinese text in them.

 

[louis2008]

How old is the computer? You say it has an i5, but Intel have been calling different chips "i5" for over a decade now, and a ten year old one is a very different beast from a new one.

Are these large spreadsheets or is it like this for any spreadsheet? What sort of disk drive do you have? Does the 6-7 seconds include opening the app or is that already running?

Most likely the format conversion is a big factor here, just considering others that might be relevant (a slow disk and large sheets for example would be a factor both locally and online). Does the computer lag in other respects, or is it just spreadsheet loading?

i5 2400
8GB RAM
256GB SSD, not sure about the model but I remember it was bought in 2020 and should be new model at that time
6-7 seconds include opening the apps.

sheet shouldn't be so large, very common size

Computer doesn't lag in other aspects

 

[louis2008]

are you accessing it online? or is it downloaded onto your computer?

How can I download the word or excel file created on Google drive to local drive? I have never tried doing this.

 

[louis2008]

I assume you're using some version of Windows? Our school Lenovo classroom PCs running Win7 can take well over 30 seconds to open Doc and PPT files. But on the other hand my new MacBook Pro with the M1(ARM64) processor takes less than a second to open the same files in LibreOffice.

Our classroom Win7 PCs are absolutely filled with junk software, and some have viruses as well. Probably only ways to make it faster, is try cleaning your Windows system, or maybe even re-install it. Or upgrade to a faster PC? Does your PC use a hard-drive or an SSD for storage? Because that can certainly make a great difference in loading times.

Why don't you use the default applications to open the file on iOS with your macbook but LibreOffice? 同志

 

[Hadron]

How can I download the word or excel file created on Google drive to local drive? I have never tried doing this.

Very much the way you'd do things from a spreadsheet program on your computer.

From Google Sheets (web) click on the "File" menu and you should see a "download" option. This gives you a choice of formats.

i5 2400
8GB RAM
256GB SSD, not sure about the model but I remember it was bought in 2020 and should be new model at that time
6-7 seconds include opening the apps.

Yeah, that spec should be able to handle a simple spreadsheet fine.

I don't know what a regular-sized spreadsheet is (the sizes of sheets on my computer vary by more than an order of magnitude), but I actually find the latest LibreOffice comparable in speed of opening .xlsx sheets to Excel (a second or so's difference, but not always Excel being faster). But this is on an Apple silicon Mac, so will be different builds of both apps from your computer. There is however a big difference between reading the sheet into an app that's already running and starting the app from scratch, so if you always close the app after you finish with the spreadsheet it might be worth just closing the file and leaving the app going.

 

[louis2008]

Very much the way you'd do things from a spreadsheet program on your computer.

From Google Sheets (web) click on the "File" menu and you should see a "download" option. This gives you a choice of formats.


Yeah, that spec should be able to handle a simple spreadsheet fine.

I don't know what a regular-sized spreadsheet is (the sizes of sheets on my computer vary by more than an order of magnitude), but I actually find the latest LibreOffice comparable in speed of opening .xlsx sheets to Excel (a second or so's difference, but not always Excel being faster). But this is on an Apple silicon Mac, so will be different builds of both apps from your computer. There is however a big difference between reading the sheet into an app that's already running and starting the app from scratch, so if you always close the app after you finish with the spreadsheet it might be worth just closing the file and leaving the app going.

I don't know. However, from clicking on the file to opening it up completely, it usually takes 5-6 seconds. No one will comment that my files are anything big, it usually contains less than a hundred of lines. They are mostly my daily or monthly record of income and expenses. Or something like passwords for some forums.
It's really frustrating to take 5-6 seconds to open up a file completely. Any solution? At the moment, my solution is to use a pen and my hand to write down things I need to record unless I really want to make it digital, which is definitely not a good solution for me. Should I upgrade my CPU or RAM? I'm already using a SSD drive that I think hard drive is good enough for the purpose.

 

[EdwardMatthew]

You can keep your software updated ensure that you have the latest version of Microsoft Excel or Word installed. Updates often include performance improvements and bug fixes that can enhance the overall speed of the application.

 

[Johngromitleia]

I'm now using OpenOffice, LibreOffice, and Google Word/Sheet (Web version) but they all have a problem, it takes quite a few seconds (on average 6-7 seconds) to open up and load a file, it's really painful and annoying, especially when I have to deal with a lot of different files every day.

I'm on high-speed stable broadband so I think it's not the problem of internet speed, my CPU is i5 as well, and 8GB RAM, which should be more than enough.

Is there any way to solve this problem? Or it just always takes time to open any word or excel files so there is no way to get the problem solved?

Hey there!

No worries, I gotcha covered! Slow file loading can be a real pain, but let's figure this out together.

First things first, let's check if your apps are up-to-date – sometimes a simple update can work wonders.

Next, make sure there are no sneaky background apps hogging your resources – shut 'em down if you find any.

You could also try clearing your cache and temporary files for a little boost.

 

[svim]

.....When you start a Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel text editor, you see the message: "Checking for viruses". This means that when you open a file, your antivirus checks it for viruses, etc. and the antivirus add-on is enabled in Office. To me, this feature is for paranoid people and completely useless. Therefore, disabling this software speeded up the work and there were no more freezes.

Puzzling advice depending on just what operating system the OP is running on their PC. If Windows, suggesting someone should just disable AV/malware scanning functionality is a creepy recommendation, it just increases the risk level of their PC to being compromised in some way. Embedded macros in a lot of Word and Excel files are a common occurrence, as are infected macros.

So that's being paranoid? I consider this advice to be covert gaslighting. Yeah, perhaps this will result in solving the OP's lag issue, but at what cost? Both MS Windows and MS Office have been massively popular targets for black hat hackers, and for decades. I'd suggest the OP to keep searching for alternatives, a Core i5 PC with 8GB of RAM and a SSD should be pretty responsive for things like opening MS Office content. The problem only being with specific file types, there has to be a more practical solution.