Preventing file size from growing when adding pictures

[Guest]

I am having trouble with file size growing too much when adding pictures. I
often start with a template to create a document. When I save before adding
the picture the file size is small, usually <100kb. After I add a small
picture (about 200k jpg) and resave the word file size balloons to 3.4MB.
This is very annoying since I have to keep a lot of these files and send them
to people that use modems. Is there any solution? I have tried multiple
templates but none of them helps.

 

[Guest]

Hi,

jpeg files are actually compressed, so what you see as their size when
closed and viewing through Explorer is actually their compressed size. When
you insert them into Word, they regain their full size so you get a document
blow out.

The best thing to do is convert them to another file format (tiff, giff, bmp
etc) then adjust the settings (dpi, colour pallette etc.) and image size and
then insert them into Word. When I used to write technical documents we were
advised to use tiff files, but there may be a much better option. This will
help you control the size of your document.

I think irfanview (free for private use, and I'm not associated with it) is
a good program to use to convert files but I haven't used its image
manipulation capabilities. If you google "irfanview" you should get to the
website very easily.


Hope this helps.
Fiona Nelson

 

[Guest]

On top of the excellent picture format ideas from Fiona, have you tried
saving the file with Word's picture compression function?

File>Save as>Tools>Compress pictures

I have found this works well.