Numbers Import and Load Performance Problems

Question

Some initial results of converting a single 1.9MB Excel spreadsheet to Numbers:
_Results using Numbers v1.0_
Import 1.9MB Excel spreadsheet into Numbers: 7 minutes 3.5 seconds
Load (saved) Numbers spreadsheet (2.4MB): 5 minutes 11.7 seconds
_Results using Numbers v1.0.1_
Import 1.9MB Excel spreadsheet into Numbers: 6 minutes 36.1 seconds
Load (saved) Numbers spreadsheet (2.4MB): 5 minutes 5.8 seconds
_Comparison to Excel_
Excel loads the original 1.9MB spreadsheet in 4.2 seconds.
Summary
Numbers v1.0 and v1.0.1 exhibit severe performance problems with loading (of it's own files) and importing of Excel V.x files.

Answer 1

Hello
It seems that you missed a detail.
When a Numbers document is 1.9MB on disk, it may be a 7 or 8 MB file to load.
A Numbers document s not a file but a package which is a disguised folder.
The document itself is described in an WML extremely verbose file stored in a gzip archive.
Opening such a document starts with an unpack sequence which is a fast one (except maybe if the space available on the support is short).
The unpacked file may easily be 10 times larger than the packed one.
Just an example, the xml.gz file containing the report of my bank operations for 2007 is a 300Kb one but the expanded one, the one which Numers must read, is a 4 MB one, yes 13,3 times the original.
And, loading it is not sufficient, this huge file must be "interpreted" to build the display.
As it is very long, Apple treats it as the TRUE description of the document and so, each time it must display something, it must work as the interpreters that old users like me knew when they used the Basic available in Apple // machines.
Addind a supplemetary stage would have add time to the opening sequence but would have fasten the usage of the document.
Of course, it would also had added a supplementary stage duringthe save it process.
I hope that they will adopt this scheme but of course I don't know if they will do that.
Of course, the problem is quite the same when we import a document from Excel or from AppleWorks.
The app reads the original which is stored in a compact shape then it deciphers it to create the XML code. Optimisation would perhaps reduce a bit these tasks but it will continue to be a time consuming one.
Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE dimanche 27 janvier 2008 16:46:12)