[thequicksilver]

I've done a fair bit of Googling before making this post, and there's been a few reports of Pages being a little sluggish on the Mac Web, but nothing like the experience I'm having.

Pages is, in a word, unusable.

I can't work out what's going on. I'm not taxing the thing, I'm multitasking only moderately, but Pages is just ridiculous.

• It's a CPU hog. I have an almost blank document open in Pages, nothing more. I've varied between it being the active window and a background one, and CPU usage has varied between 8% and 68%. This is not a joke. See the proof.
• It takes about a second for a keystroke/mouse click to be registered.
• It frequently beachballs, with Activity Monitor informing me it's hung.

I knew it was a far from perfect app when I purchased it, but I expected it to be, at the very least, useable. I'm not sure what else I can do. I presumed it was a bad installation, so I deleted the entire iWork suite, restarted, repaired permissions, restarted, reinstalled iWork, restarted, repaired permissions, restarted, and tried it again. Result = the same. I'm running the latest 10.3.7 with no haxies installed, btw.

Incidentally, Keynote 2 works admirably.

My system's not exactly a speed demon (1.07GHz iBook G4, 768MB memory etc), but it's more than sufficient to run iWork comfortably according to Apple's guidelines. I can't believe I'm the only one having such severe problems here. Short of reformatting, does anyone have any advice as to how to fix this, or am I resigned to waiting for Pages 1.0.1/1.1 to arrive in Software Update?

[Brad]

Why am I not surprised?

Here's hoping the best for the revamped TextEdit in Tiger we've been waiting for...

[chucker]

700 MHz iBook G3, 640 MB RAM. Pages is faster than I expected it to be (unlike iPhoto 5, which is almost perfectly unusable in anything but browsing mode). CPU usage is rather low, averages around 20%, which isn't much for my little weak box. When in background, CPU usage is almost nothing.

Word is SLOW compared to Pages. Unusably slow. Pages? Pages is good.

So is TextEdit in Tiger, btw. <hides NDA under pillow>

[dfiler]

So it's looking like: YMMV

For what it's worth, iPhoto is remarkably quicker in each version. I would bet that apple developers are now way more skilled in cocoa than they were just a couple of years ago... we should start seeing better v1.0 releases even with apple's sluggish track record.

[Gargoyle]

As soon as I can get TNT to deliver my package when I am at home, i'll let you know how I get on!

[Tuttle]

Pages runs extremely fast on my dual 2gig G5. I don't use it for anything but light text editing, but I've seen none of the problems you are seeing.

[Brad]

Golly, on a dual 2 GHz G5 it's no surprise you don't see any speed issues. Unfortunatley, not all of us have computers that fast.

[psmith2.0]

File that under the "well no shit, genius" heading.

"I've got nearly the fastest Mac in existence...no hang-ups or problems here!"

1GHz iBook G4 > Dual 2GHz G5 = a long way apart

[Tuttle]

Originally Posted by Brad Golly, on a dual 2 GHz G5 it's no surprise you don't see any speed issues. Unfortunatley, not all of us have computers that fast.

Someone asked for other people's experiences with Pages, I gave mine.

[Tuttle]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 File that under the "well no shit, genius" heading. "I've got nearly the fastest Mac in existence...no hang-ups or problems here!" 1GHz iBook G4 > Dual 2GHz G5 = a long way apart

Go away unless you have something to add to the thread.

[Nullpunkt]

Originally Posted by Tuttle Go away unless you have something to add to the thread.

there's really no point to barking out orders around here...after all, we are a "community"... but perhaps your critques would be better received if you grasped the concept of respect for your fellow posters, instead of offering up some flippant remark the second someone doesn't see your obtuse logic.

[thegelding]

don't make me use my father voice...

everybody chill and restart

don't have pages yet, but i look forward to using it

of course it may be dog slow on my iMac FP 800MHz
but slow is ok, gives me time to drink while creating

g

[psmith2.0]

Tuttle, relax. It's a joke (should've used a smiley, I guess). You've got a snazzy machine (faster than anything I'll ever have)...no need to get bent out of shape. You're telling us you've got no performance/speed problems with your Ferrari, while most of us are tooling around in Civics or a Taurus.



It just struck me - and apparently others too - as funny or odd. That's all.

Although, unfortunately, I don't have iWork yet...I'll be curious to see how it performs on a 1.25GHz PowerBook.

I "add" plenty, thanks. And I won't be going away.

[Tuttle]

Have you browsed through? http://discussions.info.apple.com/ There's an iWork section now.

I see a few people mentioning speed problems with a certain template and spellcheckers. But nothing like what you are reporting.

[ast3r3x]

Not reading through everything, Pages is just damn fast on my computer. After opening, I can edit text very quickly, and if it's sitting idle it doesn't use any processor resources.

[The Return of the 'nut]

i strongly dislike pages but it's been very responsive and quick on my powerbook g4/667. so....sounds like something is conflicting with it. perhaps you should reinstall.

[psmith2.0]

Yeah, there's something deeper going on, it sounds like. You said you ran a fairly clean system and you've reinstalled this and repaired that.

Very odd.

[thequicksilver]

Here's something of an update on the situation:

I've just opened Pages, and just typed in it. I've not opened a single palette, and it's worked fine, like you described. Activity Monitor below.



However, the second I open the Media palette (emphasis there to stop anybody saying it's a random occurrence ) the CPU usage ramps up and up.



Even on closing the palette, the CPU rating stays high, flitting round anywhere between 0 and 25%. Pressingly, when the CPU Activity is flitting around, the Real Memory used is going up and up by about half a meg a second.

What worries me most is the amount of Virtual Memory this app is using. 304MB for an app which I've typed approximately fifty words into, and opened a grand total of one palette. (For reference, that's double that of my Camino window with six tabs open.) I dread to think what it would be like for a ten page graphic heavy newsletter - it may just kill this machine the way it's going at the moment.



My iPhoto library (as accessed by the Media panel) is a not exactly massive 2535 images. I wasn't even dragging them into the document or anything like that - all the panel was doing was displaying the bloody thumbnails.

Can anyone else testify as to their experiences with the Pages Media palette?

[Tuttle]

There are people talking about problems with the Media browser on the Apple discussion forum.

Causing slowness and crashes.

[Kickaha]

How many Movies in your Movies folder, and songs in iTunes? I suspect that it's caching information on all that the first time you access the Media palette.

It *might* be a one-time hit, and once it's done cataloguing everything, it will only have to update incrementally, but...

Oh, and as for the VM use, don't worry about the number on the right, worry about the one to the left of it. That's the amount being used in physical RAM. I frequently have apps that use 400-600MB in the right column on a machine with 512MB. It's only when the left number crests 350MB that I start to have problems.

[thequicksilver]

I had read there briefly today Tuttle - thanks for the heads up - but have only just noted the specific detail about the Media Browser. I'll see what is workable outable from what they say there.

[thequicksilver]

Originally Posted by Kickaha How many Movies in your Movies folder, and songs in iTunes? I suspect that it's caching information on all that the first time you access the Media palette. It *might* be a one-time hit, and once it's done cataloguing everything, it will only have to update incrementally, but... Oh, and as for the VM use, don't worry about the number on the right, worry about the one to the left of it. That's the amount being used in physical RAM. I frequently have apps that use 400-600MB in the right column on a machine with 512MB. It's only when the left number crests 350MB that I start to have problems.

Somewhat alarmingly, it turns out it's NOT a one time hit. It turns out it's recataloguing my ENTIRE Movies folder every time I open the palette. This is REGARDLESS of whether or not I choose the Movies option. I have 4.5GB of stuff in my Movies folder, and it simply can't handle them without hogging the entire system.

It's not surprising it's a one off bork, but I find it impossible to believe that it's not capable of storing the thumbnailed movie catalogue. Surely Spotlight has taught Apple a thing or two about metadata?

In the meantime, I'm moving my ~/Movies to elsewhere on my disk so it can't find them, but I'm distinctly unimpressed by this.

Pages 1.0.1 fixing this ASAP please Apple. Half an hour of beta testing on a real world system should have discovered this.

[Kickaha]

Yeouch, yeah, that's bad. Cache, or do not. There is no 'Try Again?'

[blindfox]

I was in an Apple store the other day and had a crack at Pages.

It was running on a G5 tower (don't know what spec) and I must say it was decidedly sluggish.

I only had a quick go, but accessing a menu took about 1/2 second and trying to manipulate a template a loaded was rather painful - especially considering it was a G5. I hate to think how it was run on my iBook G3 600...

Cheers, Nick

[naren]

Originally Posted by thequicksilver Somewhat alarmingly, it turns out it's NOT a one time hit. It turns out it's recataloguing my ENTIRE Movies folder every time I open the palette.

How very odd. Is this feature similar to the media pallet feature in the new iDVD? (which rocks by the way, I san scroll through 10+ gigs and play whatever with no performance hit, very cool)

[kaupena]

I don't know. For arguments sake I'm running pages on my old 500mhz TiBook, and it was able to refference my 300Gb+ itunes library in about 10 seconds. Maybe the trouble is only with videos?

[BenRoethig]

Originally Posted by Brad Why am I not surprised? Here's hoping the best for the revamped TextEdit in Tiger we've been waiting for...

Or Appleworks with a revamped interface. That's Apple for ya. You ask for a simple word processor and you end up getting Pagemaker lite.

[thequicksilver]

Originally Posted by kaupena I don't know. For arguments sake I'm running pages on my old 500mhz TiBook, and it was able to refference my 300Gb+ itunes library in about 10 seconds. Maybe the trouble is only with videos?

It's likely it's only accessing your iTunes and iPhoto Library metadata files which store the details about them. With Movies, there's no such playlist type thing, hence the issue. You'd have thought Pages would have generated its own Movies metadata file.

[atfault]

Dual 2 G5, with 2.5 Gigs of Ram and Pages is a dog. I am so disappointed, but I'm sure there must be something deeper going on. Here's hoping we can figure out what it is.

[alcimedes]

So just to clarify. Is it fine as long as you don't open the Media panel, or is it always slow?