Help, my template file size is out of control!!

[termiflyer]

Hi all. I've been following everyone's advice and creating a template
and using styles, no direct formatting, etc etc. Now, my template has
grown to over 1 MB and there is not even any content to it yet!!

Is there a way I can go through the document and see what's eating up
all the space?

(my latest addition was a table of contents and table of figures, and I
noticed that jumped it up from 450k to 1.1MB ... however, it seems like
450k is even too large!!)

 

[termiflyer]

Thanks Anne. That was it: the logo in my headers and footers. The
problem was when I went from one set of headers/footers (one section),
to five sets (5 sections: 1 for cover page, 1 for table of contents, 1
for list of figures, 1 for list of tables, and 1 for the body). The
result was at least nine copies of my logo (different even/odd
headers).

Is there any way to link the logo in multiple spots so there is only
one copy of the actual image in the file?

 

[Anne Troy]

Not "keeping" within the document, BUT likely, you can compress the image
BEFORE you insert it. Try www.irfanview.com if you don't have another
graphics program installed already that allows you to compress your logo.
************
Anne Troy
www.OfficeArticles.com

 

[jayoungjr]

termiflyer,

Highight the graphic on your cover page and Bookmark it. Then insert a
reference to the bookmark in all subsequent headers.

Good luck,

 

[termiflyer]

Thanks jayoungjr. Worked like a charm!!

termiflyer,

Highight the graphic on your cover page and Bookmark it. Then insert a
reference to the bookmark in all subsequent headers.

Good luck,

 

[termiflyer]

Spoke too soon! I'm adding cross-references to my logo to my
headers/footers and the file size is increasing by 100k+ each time.
Like it's actually adding the image again instead of a pointer. Any
idea what's going on?

(When I said it worked like a charm I was at home trying it out on a
simple document (not a template nor were the images in a header/footer)
.... don't know if that has anything to do with it).

 

[jayoungjr]

termiflyer,

By George, you're right. I hadn't noticed the file size increase before.
Perhaps it's because I try to keep header/footer logos small and in the
5-10KB range where possible.

My only suggestion at this point would be to try to reduce your logo's file
size. If your logo size (height & width) is large and/or high res (96 pix/in
or more) and/or 65K colors (16 bit/pix) or above, try changing combinations
of those attributes to reduce file size.

Logo colors can usually be reduced to 256 (8 bit/pix) and frequently to 16
(4 bit/pix) without any discernible loss of color or clarity. After all,
logos are usually 4-color thumbnails not usually meant to viewed larger than
actual size.

Also experiment with different file formats. Your particular logo may be
saved more efficiently (i.e., smaller file size) in JPEG, GIF, or PNG. Also
experiment with the insertion format. Word's Picture and Metafile frequently
offer the best efficiency, even over the above formats. For example, your
logo may have the smallest file size when saved as a JPEG, but Word file size
is smallest when it is inserted as a Metafile, not a JPEG.

There are beaucoup freeware and shareware image processing programs to be
found on the Web. One of the best freeware programs I've found is Irfanview.
It can be downloaded from www.irfanview.com. It's absolutely free. If you
wind up using it on a continuing basis, you may want to salve your conscience
by making a small donation sometime down the road.

Sorry I wasn't able to help you more...

Good luck,

 

[termiflyer]

Thanks jayoungjr. I'm glad to hear I'm not "special" with the
increasing file size per image ... even with bookmarks.

I took your advice: I copied out my image and pasted as a new image in
IrfanView. Then, I saved this as an enhanced metafile. For some
reason, when I imported it back into my word document, it was a
different size than what i saved it as in IrfanView. However, after I
resized it to what I needed (in Word itself), and re-populated the
headers, my file size is down to 337k from 1.1 MB. Great improvement
even if the bookmark thing didn't quite work!!

Thanks again.

 

[jayoungjr]

termiflyer,

Like my granfather used to say: "There are many ways to skin a cat..."