Multiple pictures in Word

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I use the identical picture many times in a Word doc. Is there a way to place
one copy of the picture in the doc and then only refer to it in each
subsequent use?
That would greatly reduce the size of the doc.
 
I use the identical picture many times in a Word doc. Is there a way to place
one copy of the picture in the doc and then only refer to it in each
subsequent use?
That would greatly reduce the size of the doc.
Click to expand...

Put the picture in once. Select it and insert a bookmark.

At all the other locations, insert a Ref field containing the
bookmark's name.
 
Hi Paul,

To add one bit to Jay's information, the method
he mentioned may not decrease the size of the document,
depending on the graphic format you're using.

If, for example, the original graphic is a .BMP (bitmap)
and is inserted into the .doc file through
Insert=>Picture=>From File
then for each {Ref} code Word pulls in another one.

If you use Insert=>Picture from File and choose the
Link option to create an {IncludePicture} field
that may work for you. You can store the link/field
as an Autotext entry for quick reuse or you can
place it once then move to the next point to insert
the graphic and use F4 (repeat last action)

If this is a graphic that appears on each page you
can instead put it into the header or footer a single
time.

========
I use the identical picture many times in a Word doc. Is there a way to place
one copy of the picture in the doc and then only refer to it in each
subsequent use?
That would greatly reduce the size of the doc. >>
--
Let us know if this helped you,

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

Office 2003 Editions explained
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/office/editions.mspx
 
Hi Jay and Bob,

Thanks for the quick replies. Bob was correct; there was almost no change in
file size: 548k to 538k.

Before I try Bob's suggestion a question. I need to send the completed doc
to someone--that's why size is of particular concern. If I create an
{IncludePicture} field don't I need to also send the original picture file?
If so, how do I make it easy for the recipient to use?

Also, Bob, you implied that by choosing the right picture format I may be
able to use Jay's method. How would that work?

Paul
 
Thanks, Bob. I shouldn't have fired off a response without
experimenting first.

Paul, here are the results of a couple of small experiments, all done
in Word 2003.

- I inserted a 6 KB bmp file in an otherwise empty Word document,
which made a 24 KB file. Using WinZip to compress the document
resulted in a 5 KB zip file.

- I inserted the same bmp in another empty document, bookmarked it,
and inserted 189 copies of a Ref field to repeat it. The resulting
document was 494 KB that compressed to a 17 KB zip file.

- I used the "Link to picture" option of the Insert > Picture > From
File dialog to insert an INCLUDEPICTURE field for the same bmp. The
document file was again 24 KB, but it zipped to only 3 KB.

- I added 189 more copies of the INCLUDEPICTURE field. The document
file this time was 105 KB, which zipped to 11 KB. Adding the original
bmp file to the zip archive increased it to 13 KB.

- I tried similar experiments with jpg, gif, png, and wmf picture
formats and got very similar results.

Embedding versus linking involves tradeoffs when the document has to
be sent elsewhere, as you noted. With embedding you have one large
file; with linking you have two or more small files. Zipping, in
either case, gives you a much smaller file to transfer.

If you use linking, it's best to have the graphics in the same folder
as the document, so there's no problem with having an incorrect path
in the INCLUDEPICTURE field.
 
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