Ballooning file size question?

Subject: Ballooning file size question?
From: Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 11:53:28 -0500


Paul Sparrow-Clarke wonders: <<I have an MS Word 2000 question. I have created a 9-page manual. When I added photos to the document, which I pasted into the document as "Picture" (supposedly the format that takes up the least amount of space), the file size of the document ballooned to over 6 megs.>>

First, you should never "paste" graphics into Word; always use the "Insert-->Picture" menu choice. (I assume this is what you actually used?) Second, you didn't mention how large the photos are. High-quality photos can be megabyte-sized on their own, and the large file size is thus to be expected.

Here's an excerpt of I wrote a month or so back, which may help:

PC Magazine just ran one of their often-interesting tips about how Word stores scaleable vector graphics of various sorts and other types such as JPG--apparently by creating a bitmapped WMF version that it stores in the file to facilitate screen display. Unfortunately, WMF is a lousy format for bitmaps (so says PC Mag), and causes enormous file bloat. Apparently, the solution is a registry hack that stops Word from creating the WMF file. Details: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1722372,00.asp

In case that link breaks, here's Neil Rubenking's description of the solution: "Close all open instances of Word and launch REGEDIT from the Start menu's Run dialog. For Word 2003, navigate to the key HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Options. Word 2002 users should change 11.0 to 10.0; Word 2000 users should change it to 9.0. Look in the right-hand pane for a value named ExportPictureWithMetafile; you probably won't find it. If the value is not present, right-click in the right-hand pane and choose New | String value from the menu. Enter the name ExportPictureWithMetafile and click on OK. Then double-click on the newly created value, type 0 (zero) for its value, and press Enter."

--Geoff Hart ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)
www.geoff-hart.com


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