Tommy Apple wrote:When I'm typing (WP, SS) the text appears very slowly.... or stops, then catches up quickly. Will trashing recent items clear this up?
You have run into the "Recent Items bug" that has been around since AppleWorks 6 was released in March, 2000. It can make it appear that AppleWorks has frozen or failed to launch. Go to your account > Documents > AppleWorks User Data > Recent Items & delete all (or most) of the aliases in this folder then restart AppleWorks. You might also need to delete the contents of the AutoSave folder.