Typical file size

[Mike Miller]

I have an MPP file that has 772 tasks and is about 1.5 MB
in size. It was about 2.5 MB, but I found a tip that if
you saved it as an MPB file then back as an MPP it would
remove any "bloat" - that reduced it to the current 1.5MB.

I was wondering if this is a typical size for a file with
this many tasks, and what factors contribute to the file
size? It seems rather large for a relatively medium-sized
project.

 

[John]

Mike,
I'll assume you meant to say you cut out some of the bloat by saving as
an .mpd not .mpb. The former is a database, I have no idea what the
latter is, if anything.

Actually 1.5M probably isn't too bad for a 700+ task file. I have one
file that is 625K with 188 tasks and another that is 1.47M with 350
tasks. It depends a lot on how 'generic' the file is. If the file has a
significant amount of special formatting, particularly with the graphics
(Gantt), the file size will tend to be larger. However the one thing
that contributes more to file growth than anything else is the way the
file is saved. If a normal 'Save' is used, the action is analogous to an
'append' operation and the file size grows with each save. You should
always use 'Save As' because the new data overwrites the old so the file
only grows based on added information.

Hope this helps.
John

 

[Rod Gill]

Hi,

Project does bloat its file size in the interest of performance and probably
other architectural reasons. However, when you first open a file, select
File, Save immediately. When you do this Project does file house keeping and
does the same as File, Save As. Your file will then be as compact as it can
be.

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Rod Gill
Project MVP
For Microsoft Project companion projects, best practices and Project VBA
development services
visit www.projectlearning.com/

 

[John]

Rod,
Somehow doing a file 'Save' immediately upon opening a file seems to
defeat the purpose. How does that help with saving information in the
file once it has been opened and updated? I'm certainly no expert on the
subtle aspects of saving but when I found out about the 'append' versus
'replace' nature several years ago, I never did understand why the
"plain" Save command even exists. Can you enlighten us or is there a
good explanation written somewhere?

John

 

[Rod Gill]

Rather than do file formatting on every save (to speed things up) the
programmers just programmed it so File save immediately after opening does
major file house keeping. It's not intended to save any information. In fact
if you do even one edit then save the file house keeping doesn't happen.

I learnt about this because one of the internal Microsoft guru's kindly
alerted this to me after I recommended the save as in a Woody's Project
Watch article.

--
For VBA posts, please use the public.project.developer group.
For any version of Project use public.project
For any version of Project Server use public. project.server

Rod Gill
Project MVP
For Microsoft Project companion projects, best practices and Project VBA
development services
visit www.projectlearning.com/

 

[John]

Rod,
I'm trying to follow what you are saying. Do I correctly interpret that
if a File Save is done immediately after opening a file and then again
after edits have been done, the file will grow less than or no more than
if a File Save As is simply done after the edits? If the file grows less
with the double save operation then I can see a benefit. However, if the
two methods are equivalent then why do a two step operation instead of a
one step operation?

John