size of template after deleting all its contents

[Larry]

Two mysteries.

There is an old backup copy of my Normal template, called "extra backup
copy of Normal, 10-03." It is about 1.1 MB. I opened it and deleted
its projects, its autotext entries, its styles. After I did that, its
size was still 555 KB. How is this possible?

Here's another oddity. This old backup copy came to my attention
because I was looking for a certain name on my computer. Let's say the
name was "Truman." The search found "Truman" in three backup copies of
Normal. But there is no text in these document templates. The only
connection between the name "Truman" and my templates is that "Truman"
is also in Custom.dic. A mystery.

Larry

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Larry,

There is an old backup copy of my Normal template, called "extra backup
copy of Normal, 10-03." It is about 1.1 MB. I opened it and deleted
its projects, its autotext entries, its styles. After I did that, its
size was still 555 KB. How is this possible?

Normal.dot also stores things like formatted AutoCorrect entries, list
templates (numbering stuff), keyboard shortcuts, menu customizations and
other bits and pieces.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[Larry]

Hi Cindy,

Right you are, but I'm still surprised that all those other
things--customized menus, formatted autotext, key assignments and so
on--took up as many bytes as the projects themselves, which contained
hundreds of macros!

Larry

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Larry

Unfortunately, when you remove a module from a VBA project, Word doesn't
release all the file space. You can release the space by exporting each
module to a .bas file and re-importing, then saving the file. Or, use the
CodeCleaner, which does it for you
(http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/TemplateBloat.htm). So your file has
remained large because space formerly occupied by your macros has not been
released.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Larry]

Thanks. Also, the size of templates is whimsical. Sometimes after I
add a new macro, the template will be smaller! So there are things
going on behind the scenes that affect template size.

Larry