Image bloat(?) in Word2003 documents

[ChrisGreaves]

A client sent me a Word document - 8 megabytes if it's an inch - and I managed to get it down to 67 KB after a series of experiments (attached image of the working folder),

I might write this up as a technical white paper or something, but it seems to me that when an old fart like me can get rid of 99.1853% (approx) of a document, there's something wrong somewhere.

For the record, I cheated on the latest version (E-Brake12.doc) by pasting the original document via my best friend "Notepad" and then just running my little macro "Insert Pictures From Active Document Folder As Links", so the new document has text with no local formatting (as my client is wont to apply) and raw images - I haven't considered re-sizing them or floating them or anchoring them or centering them etc.

I deviously copied each image from the original document and pasted it into MSPaint then saved it as a PNG file - 7 files in all. Their reported total size is only 1.45 MB - not quite 25% of the original 8MB document.

I should go back and re-read Curious about re-sizing

Short of embarking on a micro-project (Which I will do if I am getting paid for it), and doing a thorough investigation of the original document, is there a generic reason for this sort of graphics bloat?

Is it perhaps because the client doesn't know his stuff and pastes an image in, getting, say, a BMP-like effect rather than a JPG/PNG solution?

Right now this is not a big deal for me.
I emailed the client right back⁽¹⁾:-
KW> Further to our discussions, I have a question:Is there any way of reducing the size of this file?
CG> Yes.

So he should be happy, right?

⁽¹⁾ I'm such a tease!

[ChrisGreaves]

I haven't considered re-sizing them or floating them or anchoring them or centering them etc.

(5 minutes later).
Weird!
(1) Re-sizing the images by dragging the lower-right corner until the image fills the screen doesn't change the document size.
(2) Removing excess paragraph amrks seems to have dropped the document size from 67KB to 55KB.

[HansV]

There's an easy way of saving all images from a Word document: save as a HTML file (*.htm). Word will create a subfolder with image files in the same folder as the HTML file. For a document named Nail.htm, the subfolder will be named Nail_Files.

(Note: the .html file and subfolder are linked: if you delete the .html file, the subfolder will automatically be deleted too.)

Using .bmp might well be the cause of the bloat. Depending on the type of image, .png or .jpg is MUCH more efficient.

Also: if you paste a 12 megapixel photograph into the document and crop or resize it to 480x360, the 12 megapixel image will still be stored with the document, unless you select the option to compress images.

[ChrisGreaves]

... save as a HTML file (*.htm). Word will create a subfolder with image files in the same folder as the HTML file.

Thanks Hans. I know about that but hadn't thought of it.

3.png

There are various options for HTML in Word2003 - as an MHT (single file web document), as a "web page", and as a "web page filtered".
The MHT reduces to about 60% the original size.

I realize now that my 55KB document does NOT include the image files - just hyperlinks to the files, which as noted occupy about 1.5MB.

... you select the option to compress images.

I'd tried the Compress from Word 2003's Picture toolbar on one of the interim versions.
It didn't seem to do much for me.

P.S. I just thought to see what happens if I write the 55KB (linked image) file to PDF with Primo PDF- I get a PDF file of about 225KB.
Since the document is a price quotation for my client's client, I may as well go back and re-do the various trials and see what size PDF comes out of it.