Word on Mac is Lagging Terribly and Is Not Working Properly

Hi Tia,

On another post people were experiencing similar issues and they said to uninstall word and reinstall an older version like 16.84 because it seems like sonoma is not compataible with the lastest version of word. Which makes sense because when I updated to sonoma that is when my issues started. (I thought I had the link to the post but I can't find it :( )

I found the older versions of word here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/update-history-office-for-mac

So far it seems to be working for me. If it stops working I think I will try to revert back to an older mac software instread. But I am holding off on that option as I am not too savvy with software.

Apparently v16.85.2 has not yet been released to the Current Channel.

Use Help> Check for Updates then click the Advanced button & select Current Channel (Preview) from the list of Update Channels. The 16.85.2 update then will be available.

You can revert to Current Channel after updating if you wish.

Hi There,

Ironically, I've had the same issues over the past week but I'm not a student, but I am on a 14" macbook pro, M1 max, 32GB with a grip of memory left to use, running Sonoma 14.5 with a PAID microsoft 365 license and I am the owner. I've lost track of how many times I had to restart my computer to try to get it to stop lagging. I was thinking to uninstall and reinstall Word, but it sounds like that won't do much to help.
I just checked for an update and saw I have 16.85.2 (2 updates) available. Are those targeted at these issues then? TIA.
@NC1324- I hope you were able to get a solution to your challenges too!

Yes I am, it shows my school email

Please provide the Version Number of your Office software as indicated in Word> About Microsoft Word.

My understanding is that there is a performance problem on Sonoma. Microsoft is aware of it & is working on a fix. No ETA.has been given.

However, if your experience is as bad as you say there probably are other factors involved. Some suggestions:

• Determine how much free disk space you have on the HD. Word relies heavily on free space for its operations, Delete any unnecessary files & empty the Trash.
• Run Apple's Disk Utility - First Aid on the HD.
• Make sure you don't have any add-ins or utilities which may be interacting with Word or running background processes. Start the Mac in Safe Mode to see if performance improves. That documentation offers suggestions.

What's preventing you from doing so? I haven't used those keyboard shortcuts in years so whether they've been change as Microsoft tries to gain parity with Office for Windows I can't say. In any case you should find that these shortcuts work:

Option+Command+C — Copy Formatting

Option+Command+V — Paste Formatting

The other Paste Options you mentioned vary depending on what was copied & from where. Use the Paste Options button or click the ⌵ on the right edge of the Paste tool on the Home tab of the Ribbon.

Hi Bob, 

Thanks so much for your prompt response. 

My word version is 16.85.

I emptied out all my trash and downloads and still nothing. My Mac has 16 gb. And my storage says 282.08 GB available of 494.38 GB.

I did safe mode and the issue didn’t happen there but it has to tell since the lag happens on and off. It stoped lagging for majority of today after I did safe mode but it started up bad again.

Apple said to make a new user account and test it out and I did and it worked temporarily. I also noticed that on the new account word looked completely different than my new account which I found odd. As to the keyboard shortcuts, it simply will not recognize my added shortcut. On the new user a pop on word came out with this article. It seems like Microsoft did new update the shortcuts so I can’t swap option for command.

I made an appoint with apple for Sunday to see if they can look at it and reset my whole laptop to see if that fixes the issue.

I did the Disk Utility and it seems good but I dont really know what to look for there.

Report says this:

Running First Aid on “Macintosh HD” (disk3s1s1)

Verifying the startup volume will cause this computer to stop responding.

Verifying file system.

Volume could not be unmounted.

Using live mode.

Performing fsck_apfs -n -l -x /dev/rdisk3s1

Checking the container superblock.

Checking the checkpoint with transaction ID 8207326.

Checking the space manager.

Checking the space manager free queue trees.

Checking the object map.

Checking the encryption key structures.

Checking volume /dev/rdisk3s1.

Checking the APFS volume superblock.

The volume Macintosh HD was formatted by newfs_apfs (1677.41.3.100.4) and last modified by apfs_kext (2236.120.10.0.1).

Checking the object map.

Checking the snapshot metadata tree.

Checking the snapshot metadata.

Checking snapshot 1 of 1 (com.apple.os.update-4F9A570DA7279961C47EEA23ABADB587664D0494C3460AB72D34FF0DA60BEA62, transaction ID 7879699)

Checking the fsroot tree.

Checking the file extent tree.

Checking the extent ref tree.

Verifying volume object map space.

Verifying allocated space.

The volume /dev/rdisk3s1 with UUID D0E4DEA2-3927-4E5D-8CB9-D5A0476EB662 appears to be OK.

File system check exit code is 0.

Restoring the original state found as mounted.

Operation successful.