Word 2007 produces very large Word 2003 compatible files

[Beth Melton]

I'd be delighted to send them to you.

I don't think I can attach them to this, so what address should I send
them
to?

I'm interested in seeing them too. To obtain a valid email address
remove NoSpam4Me from (e-mail address removed)

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Guides for the Office 2007 Interface:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx

 

[Terry Farrell]

Just use Windows to create a new user (which starts a new profile) and then
copy across all the documents from the corrupt user profile to the new user
profile. Once you are sure that you have copied across all the necessary
user files, delete the corrupt profile.

Terry

 

[Tony Jollans]

Thank you for the files.

The reason for the increase in size is that the big file contains a Preview
(Thumbnail) Picture.

I can't say I know much about this, but in 2007, the setting is held in the
registry as a common Office setting, although it appears to be a collection
of bit flags, one per application. The effect of it seems to be to set the
"save preview picture" option on the documents you save, and this setting
then travels with those documents, which seem to grow like Topsy.

In Word 2007, for the user with the problem, click on the Office Button >
Prepare > Properties. At the top of the Pane that opens up, click on the
dropdown arrow beside the legend "Document Properties" and select Advanced
Properties. In the dialogue that then opens, select the Summary tab, and at
the bottom is a checkbox "Save Thumbnails for all Word Documents". Uncheck
it and click OK.

I hope that will stop the problem from happening, but you will have to go
through prevously affected documents and individually reset them - in Word
2003, File > Properties > Summary tab > UNcheck "Save preview picture".

 

[BrianS]

Many thanks - that fixed it!

Brian

Thank you for the files.

The reason for the increase in size is that the big file contains a Preview
(Thumbnail) Picture.

I can't say I know much about this, but in 2007, the setting is held in the
registry as a common Office setting, although it appears to be a collection
of bit flags, one per application. The effect of it seems to be to set the
"save preview picture" option on the documents you save, and this setting
then travels with those documents, which seem to grow like Topsy.

In Word 2007, for the user with the problem, click on the Office Button >
Prepare > Properties. At the top of the Pane that opens up, click on the
dropdown arrow beside the legend "Document Properties" and select Advanced
Properties. In the dialogue that then opens, select the Summary tab, and at
the bottom is a checkbox "Save Thumbnails for all Word Documents". Uncheck
it and click OK.

I hope that will stop the problem from happening, but you will have to go
through prevously affected documents and individually reset them - in Word
2003, File > Properties > Summary tab > UNcheck "Save preview picture".

--
Enjoy,
Tony

www.WordArticles.com

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You'll note that that was also #2 on the list of causes of file bloat that
Beth Melton posted earlier in this thread. A somewhat more comprehensive
list (not updated for Word 2007) for future reference:

1. Fast Saves: Disable this at on the Save tab of Tools | Options.

2. Preview Picture: Clear the check box on the Summary tab of File |
Properties.

3. Versions (File | Versions): Make sure "Automatically save version on
close" is not turned on.

4. Revisions (Tools | Track Changes):
Highlight Changes: Make sure "Highlight changes on screen" is turned on
(or that "Final Showing Markup" is displayed).
Accept/Reject Changes: If "Accept All" or "Reject All" is available then
revisions are present; accept or reject all changes, then turn Track Changes
off.

5. Keep track of formatting (Tools | Options | Edit). This is reportedly a
major cause of file bloat in Word 2002 and above.

6. Embedded True Type fonts (Tools | Options | Save); embedding fonts should
be avoided wherever possible.

7. Embedded linguistic data (Tools | Options | Save).

8. Embedded graphics: When feasible, it is preferable to link the graphics.
That is, when you insert the graphic, click the arrow beside Insert in the
Picture dialog and choose Link to File rather than Insert or Insert and
Link.

9. Embedded objects: These are even worse than ordinary graphics saved with
the document. If you see an { EMBED } code when you press Alt+F9, the
graphic is an OLE object. Unless you need to be able to edit the object in
place, unlink it using Ctrl+Shift+F9.

10. File format: Make sure you are saving as a Word document; in some cases
..rtf (Rich Text Format) files are significantly larger than .doc files.

11. Document corruption: See
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm.


--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Beth Melton]

Many thanks - that fixed it!

....had you actually gone through the list I posted previously you may have
had an answer to this issue two days ago. <wink>

When I saw the graphic on your newsletter that's the first thing I checked
and found the same as Tony. Anytime you have an image (or table with
enhanced borders) on the first page, the "Save preview picture" selected,
and the file is saved in the old binary format (*.doc), you'll encounter
massive file bloat. The new file format (*.docx), however, handles preview
pictures differently and so far I haven't encountered the same issue with
file bloat as in past versions.

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Guides for the Office 2007 Interface:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx

 

[Beth Melton]

Thank you for the files.

The reason for the increase in size is that the big file contains a
Preview (Thumbnail) Picture.

I can't say I know much about this, but in 2007, the setting is held in
the registry as a common Office setting, although it appears to be a
collection of bit flags, one per application. The effect of it seems to be
to set the "save preview picture" option on the documents you save, and
this setting then travels with those documents, which seem to grow like
Topsy.

The setting varies depending on your operating system. If using Vista then
the "Preview Picture" option is application specific. If you turn it on the
default for all new documents will also save a preview picture (thumbnail).
If using Windows XP then it's still a document only setting.

Also, documents saved in the new file format (.docx) shouldn't encounter the
file bloat issues as found in the binary file format. I say "should" because
so far in all of my tests it hasn't. Mainly this is because the thumbnail is
saved as a small graphic in the ZIP package instead of the (usually) large
embedded image (sometimes 2 images depending on the image file type) saved
in the old file format.

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Guides for the Office 2007 Interface:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx

 

[Tony Jollans]

The setting varies depending on your operating system. If using Vista then

the "Preview Picture" option is application specific. If you turn it on
the default for all new documents will also save a preview picture
(thumbnail). If using Windows XP then it's still a document only setting.

Very interesting. So, Word deliberately checks the OS and performs different
actions depending on it - even though those actions could both work on all
systems. Do you know: why the change, and why only on Vista? And is there
anything else like it?

Also, documents saved in the new file format (.docx) shouldn't encounter
the file bloat issues as found in the binary file format. I say "should"
because so far in all of my tests it hasn't. Mainly this is because the
thumbnail is saved as a small graphic in the ZIP package instead of the
(usually) large embedded image (sometimes 2 images depending on the image
file type) saved in the old file format.

Also interesting. By and large, 2007 format documents are large compared to
97-2003 format ones but they're kept small by being zipped. In this example,
the 220K doc will zip to 50K or so but the 2007 format gains its advantage
by being small to start with because of the small metafile compared to the
'clipboard format' bitmap of yore.

 

[Beth Melton]

Very interesting. So, Word deliberately checks the OS and performs
different actions depending on it - even though those actions could both
work on all systems. Do you know: why the change, and why only on Vista?
And is there anything else like it?

If you are using Vista the option in the dialog box is named differently. I
don't have access to Vista right now to give you the exact wording but it's
along the lines of "Always save preview thumbnail". I'm not 100% certain but
I believe the file properties dialog box comes from the os rather than Word.
That's what I've always thought this anyway since we can't programmatically
display the file properties dialog box using VBA and the reason why they
added the File Summary dialog box. (Of course I could easily be wrong about
this.)

I don't know if there are similar changes in other dialog boxes aside from
the file system dialog boxes. For example there's also a "Save Thumbnail"
option in the Save As dialog box on Vista and the standard file properties,
such as Subject, Title, Author, etc are included too. It makes it easy to
deselect the Thumbnail option and modify the other properties when you're
saving the file.

The main reasons for these additions is SharePoint and the new Vista search
and organize features. For example you can group or "stack" files in a
folder by the various file properties and there's a heavy emphasis on
viewing thumbnails of files in Vista as well.

Also interesting. By and large, 2007 format documents are large compared
to 97-2003 format ones but they're kept small by being zipped. In this
example, the 220K doc will zip to 50K or so but the 2007 format gains its
advantage by being small to start with because of the small metafile
compared to the 'clipboard format' bitmap of yore.

I've also found the size of the thumbnail that's saved still depends on
whether an image is also being saved in the thumbnail, if the document was
newly created in the new file format and saved as .docx verses a originally
saved as a *.doc and converted to *.docx. And I believe the thumbnail that's
saved in the *.docx file might be a little smaller, and stored as a
different file type, if you are using Vista. I'd have to check this out
again to be sure but I'm fairly certain that's what I found a couple years
ago. Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Also regarding the binary format, as I'm sure you know, if you include
images in a document Word may actually save two images in the file depending
on the image type (note this doesn't apply to the preview picture option). I
don't recall which one(s) cause the doubling of images saved off hand, and I
think they corrected many of these issues, but I seem to recall there's one
file type (an older file type) that still exhibits the behavior. Like the
preview picture these are no longer issues in the new file format based on
my tests during the beta. This is an area I spent some time testing in light
of the file bloat we've encountered in the past due to images both embedded
in the file and the embedded preview picture.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Guides for the Office 2007 Interface:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx

 

[Tony Jollans]

Thanks, Beth. There is so much I don't know!

It isn't just that the option is named differently in Vista, it does
something different. As I don't use it, I had never noticed it before.

 

[Beth Melton]

Thanks, Beth. There is so much I don't know!

I hear you! Just when you think you have a good grasp on things they up and
change things. Now that I'm getting comfortable in Word 2007 (still don't
feel as though I'm at the same knowledge level as I am with previous
versions, though) Office 14 is just around the corner. <sigh>
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Guides for the Office 2007 Interface:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx