PowerPoint huge size difference

[barman]

Last night I was working on a PPT (2000, 9.0.2716) presentation and
having a problem saving. I think that my (WinXP Professional) system
was just very slow and needed a reboot. Anyway, I got in a situation
where PPT said my file was read-only (I probably had hit Save too many
times) so I saved it as a new file name. After a reboot, I was
surprised to see the original file at size almost twice that of it
under the new file name (24673280 vs 45441024). I ran the DiffDoc
comparison tool and it reports that the files are the same. What is
PPT doing with the extra 20MB or so, and did I do anything wrong to
possibly corrupt the presentation file? Thanks.

Dilip

 

[Guest]

Do you have "enable fast saves" ticked in tools >options?

 

[Chris Watts]

Welcome to the land of Powerpoint (bit like Alice in Wonderland)! That is
quite normal - I am sure that one of our experts will explain just why!
Chris

 

[Guest]

One possibility is:
Your file may have increased in size, because your file save as settings may
have the saved the file in a backward compatible format "Save as Type".
For example, Powerpoint 2003, offers as save as type of PowerPoint 97-2003 &
95 presentation format. Saving a file in this format triples the total file
size, but the file can be opened by four or five powepoint versions.

Try a File save as where the "save as type" is set to presentation (*.ppt).
for PowerPoint 2000 this should yield a smaller file that is only in 2000
format.

 

[barman]

Thanks for the replies. John Wilson had asked if I had "enable fast
saves" enabled; I do. I don't remember setting it so wonder if it's
default behavior. Let me read the help and see what it means ... aha.
I'll turn it off. (I just resaved and saved about 3K.) Regarding
format, I just save in the native format - i.e., PowerPoint 2000.
Under FileSaveAs, I just save as Presentation, not one of the backward
compatible older types. I'll delete the file that seems to have the
same content but is much bigger - I guess it has a change history
(which could be useful but doesn't seem transparent to the end user).
Thanks, all.

Dilip

P.S. I'm soon moving to a Mac. Keynote looks exciting!

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Thanks for the replies. John Wilson had asked if I had "enable fast
saves" enabled; I do. I don't remember setting it so wonder if it's
default behavior.

It *is* default behavior and the default is a *dumb* one. You really want to
turn it off.

Let me read the help and see what it means ... aha.