High CPU usage while editing text

[jat255]

Hello,

I've stumbled upon an interesting problem in Powerpoint 2013. I am running the 32 bit version on a Windows 8 VM.

Whenever I type into a textbox in a powerpoint presentation, the software lags significantly. If I'm typing on a slide that only has text, Powerpoint will use ~70% of my CPU power while typing onto a slide, but does not lag at all. If the slide has images, that percentage will spike up to 100% and lag severely. It makes interacting with the program extremely annoying.

I see the same behavior in safe mode, and when disabling hardware acceleration.

Does anyone know anyway to fix this?

[excelledsoftware]

Originally Posted by jat255

Hello,

I've stumbled upon an interesting problem in Powerpoint 2013. I am running the 32 bit version on a Windows 8 VM.

Whenever I type into a textbox in a powerpoint presentation, the software lags significantly. If I'm typing on a slide that only has text, Powerpoint will use ~70% of my CPU power while typing onto a slide, but does not lag at all. If the slide has images, that percentage will spike up to 100% and lag severely. It makes interacting with the program extremely annoying.

I see the same behavior in safe mode, and when disabling hardware acceleration.

Does anyone know anyway to fix this?

From my experience with VM you need to look at how much memory you are allowing the machine. Once you have confirmed that enough memory is being provided you can look into what else may be taking the resources. PPT usually does not have a very big footprint and I have not seen it cause much of a lag unless the pictures are large (in file size) or there are alot of them. Open your process manager and ensure that there is nothing else taking the resources. Let us know what you come up with.

[jat255]

Originally Posted by excelledsoftware

From my experience with VM you need to look at how much memory you are allowing the machine. Once you have confirmed that enough memory is being provided you can look into what else may be taking the resources. PPT usually does not have a very big footprint and I have not seen it cause much of a lag unless the pictures are large (in file size) or there are alot of them. Open your process manager and ensure that there is nothing else taking the resources. Let us know what you come up with.

The VM has 2GB of dedicated RAM. At "rest" conditions with no file open, PPT uses about 25MB of RAM and 0% cpu. If I open a blank presentation and begin typing into a textbox, PPT will use ~70% cpu and ~125MB RAM as reported by Windows task manager. There is no lag in this condition, but that still seems like really high cpu for a relatively routine task. If I do this with multiple slides and images present, the cpu usage for PPT spikes up to ~100%, and I get lag while typing.

Are there any other tricks that could maybe help? I know some programs (like Origin for plotting) have a "speed-mode" where the images are kept in memory at a lower-res and only rendered when needed. Does ppt have anything like this?

[not_the_runner]

I have exactly the same problem with text boxes in Powerpoint on a computer I have used for loads of Powerpoint presentations for the last 3 years so must be an MS Update issue.

I restarted my computer but the same thing still happens, the CPU ramps up to 50% if I even type one letter in a text box.

It was on an existing presentation so I tried making a new text box in the presentation but the same thing happened.

I started a new presentation and that works OK.

I do a lot of work in Powerpoint and have a lot of existing presentations that I update frequently so I don't want to scrap all of that and redo everything.