Boot Camp for Mac

SergioPiresBras

Hello, good afternoon,

I have read several times that Zotero is very slow on Word on Mac.
Effectively, I am experiencing this slowness now that I am writing my PhD thesis.
Thus, I wish to know what is the explanation for this problem.
On the other hand, I have read that in Windows Word, Zotero is faster.
So, I ask if this faster speed also works if I use Boot Camp and install Windows on Mac?

Best regards

Sérgio Pires Brás

adamsmith

The reason is the speed of the Word API Zotero uses and yes, using Windows and Word for Windows through bootcamp would almost certainly speed things up massively (i.e. a Mac using bootcamp will just be as fast as a corresponding Windows machine).
I don't believe it's possible to use a single locally shared database on a bootcamp set up, so you'd have to use regular sync if you want to use on both.

SergioPiresBras

Thank you very much for your reply.
I will then install Boot Camp.
I suppose the problem can't be solved soon on Mac, right?

DWL-SDCA

MacWord is itself slow. It is faster to use Word for Windows on a Mac via a Windows emulation than the native MacWord. This is a Microsoft issue not an Apple or Zotero problem.

dstillman

Note that Boot Camp isn't emulation — that's just running Windows at full speed.

But yes, Word for Windows in a VM (e.g., with VMWare Fusion, VirtualBox, or Parallels) is almost certainly faster as well. VMWare Fusion and VirtualBox are free for personal use.

SergioPiresBras

Thanks for your answers.
I will try to install VMWare Fusion or VirtualBox.
Thanks again.

bwiernik

Your Mac files are accessible when you boot under Bootcamp, so you could do a setup to share the same Zotero database across Mac and Windows without an issue. That said, having to reboot your computer isn’t a very convenient system, so I would suggest a virtual machine instead. You should not set your virtual machine to use the same Mac Zotero database, as that will likely cause corruption. In the virtual machine, you should set it to download attachment files as needed so that you don’t duplicate every file on your system.

In my experience, Parallels is definitely the fastest VM system for Mac, so if you can afford that, I would recommend it.

SergioPiresBras

Thank you very much bwiernik, for your suggestions.
I will try the free version of Fusion 12 first, which has good reviews.
Thanks again!