Word & PDF file size bloats

[MichaelC via MacKB.com]

Thanks Rob. I'll put that to the rest of team (who don't use Macs).

From what you say, I can only conclude the same as I did back on 10/10,
that since you say that the file goes from 6 mb to 17 when you "save it"
(presumably with your email program) that you email programe is flawed.
You also talk about how attaching the file causes it to grow.
Something in your email program is messing with the attachment file.
That is bad.

I don't think, based on the information you provide, that your issue has
much to do with Word. Your email program is flawed.

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

Hi Rob,

[quoted text clipped - 49 lines]

[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
Finally, in any case, Acrobat's "reduce file size" command work well.

 

[Rob Schneider]

But ... it appears to be your email program that mysteriously changes
the file.

At this juncture, I'd lobby for the IT folks to check out all the machines.

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

Thanks Rob. I'll put that to the rest of team (who don't use Macs).

From what you say, I can only conclude the same as I did back on 10/10,
that since you say that the file goes from 6 mb to 17 when you "save it"
(presumably with your email program) that you email programe is flawed.
You also talk about how attaching the file causes it to grow.
Something in your email program is messing with the attachment file.
That is bad.

I don't think, based on the information you provide, that your issue has
much to do with Word. Your email program is flawed.

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

Hi Rob,

[quoted text clipped - 49 lines]

[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
Finally, in any case, Acrobat's "reduce file size" command work well.

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

If the file has any images it can indeed become larger. Its the way PC's
handle Graphics. Graphic on a Mac sent to windows machine will grow 2-4
times the size. and if the reverse would be 2-4 times what they would be
if created on the Mac. Png and jpeg seems to be the best format with the
least amount of Ballooning

 

[Rob Schneider]

Isn't the O.P. saying that he receives PDF file and when they save they
bloat. He mentions nothing about unzipping or extracting them from a
compressed file (far as I can see).

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[John McGhie]

Well, he doesn't mention that because he may not be aware of it. But that's
almost certainly what is happening

His editor sends him an email containing a 6 MB PDF attachment. It was
probably 17 MB on her disk, but if she sent using Entourage or another
advanced email program (e.g. Lotus Notes) it would automatically Zip the
attachment without her being aware of it. 17 MB will become 6 MB if the
content is mainly text.

When he gets the email, he can see the file is 6 MB. When he saves it, his
email program helpfully unzips it for him, and it's back to 17 or 22 MB or
so. That's all normal operation, except that neither email program is
telling the users what is happening. Don't worry about the apparent
disparity in file size: it depends on how the system is counting it and what
it is actually counting. Open the file and look at the "number of bytes"
and you will see they are the same size.

The bottom line is that PDF is generally too big to email anywhere, which is
why I suggested emailing the file as .docx. The .docx format is tightly
compressed natively, you don't have to bother zipping it (it IS a zip
file!).

As to PNG losing quality, it doesn't. That's the purpose of its existence.
PNG was created to avoid the quality loss inherent with JPEG and GIF. So if
you get poor quality results with PNG it's because the input was poor
quality: probably because you tried to make them from a JPEG.

The difference is that JPEG removes detail to preserve colour. PNG removes
colour to preserve detail. Which makes JPEG a good choice for photos of
people, because it gets the face tones correct. Use PNG for everything
else, because it preserves the resolution.

The only better choice for quality is EPS, which offers unlimited resolution
and colour, but you will have trouble with them outside the professional
publishing industry. EPS and its siblings need high-end graphics
applications installed to work correctly.

Also: When we came in to this discussion, the complaint was about file size:
adding EPS graphics to the mix would be a giant leap in the wrong direction
if that's the problem we are trying to solve

Hope this helps

Isn't the O.P. saying that he receives PDF file and when they save they
bloat. He mentions nothing about unzipping or extracting them from a
compressed file (far as I can see).

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

What I understood him to say was, he created something sent it to
someone with a PC, They sent it back to him (possibly with some changes,
I am unsure of this) and when it got back to him it was 2-4 times or
more large than when he originally had it to start with. Say if it was 1
mb when he created it by the time it made the round trip it was 2-4 mb
depending upon the file.

 

[MichaelC via MacKB.com]

Hi John,

Thanks for this.

My editor uses outlook and the file would not normally be compressed. I
receive it in entourage. In any case, this doesn't explain why it grows from
17mb to 22mb when I try to send it.

I'm afraid the PNG was rather poor quality. The image was a diagram with
labels and such. The resolution was considerably poorer than had I just cut-
and-pasted. Same thing for jpg.

This is all helping though folks. I've yet to test some of these theories for
lack of time. (We're releasing the document today, so have been caught up
with the preparation. I've been working around the 'bloat' problem as much as
possible. Even so, it's cost me time.

Michael

Well, he doesn't mention that because he may not be aware of it. But that's
almost certainly what is happening

His editor sends him an email containing a 6 MB PDF attachment. It was
probably 17 MB on her disk, but if she sent using Entourage or another
advanced email program (e.g. Lotus Notes) it would automatically Zip the
attachment without her being aware of it. 17 MB will become 6 MB if the
content is mainly text.

When he gets the email, he can see the file is 6 MB. When he saves it, his
email program helpfully unzips it for him, and it's back to 17 or 22 MB or
so. That's all normal operation, except that neither email program is
telling the users what is happening. Don't worry about the apparent
disparity in file size: it depends on how the system is counting it and what
it is actually counting. Open the file and look at the "number of bytes"
and you will see they are the same size.

The bottom line is that PDF is generally too big to email anywhere, which is
why I suggested emailing the file as .docx. The .docx format is tightly
compressed natively, you don't have to bother zipping it (it IS a zip
file!).

As to PNG losing quality, it doesn't. That's the purpose of its existence.
PNG was created to avoid the quality loss inherent with JPEG and GIF. So if
you get poor quality results with PNG it's because the input was poor
quality: probably because you tried to make them from a JPEG.

The difference is that JPEG removes detail to preserve colour. PNG removes
colour to preserve detail. Which makes JPEG a good choice for photos of
people, because it gets the face tones correct. Use PNG for everything
else, because it preserves the resolution.

The only better choice for quality is EPS, which offers unlimited resolution
and colour, but you will have trouble with them outside the professional
publishing industry. EPS and its siblings need high-end graphics
applications installed to work correctly.

Also: When we came in to this discussion, the complaint was about file size:
adding EPS graphics to the mix would be a giant leap in the wrong direction
if that's the problem we are trying to solve

Hope this helps

Isn't the O.P. saying that he receives PDF file and when they save they
bloat. He mentions nothing about unzipping or extracting them from a

[quoted text clipped - 48 lines]

 

[Rob Schneider]

The way you explain the problem, it is a problem with email software
("this doesn't explain why it grows from 17mb to 22 mb *when I try to
send it*"). If it is the *sending* of the file that causes the bloat,
then you have fundamental flaws with whatever it is you are sending the
file with. In the Windows world I would suspect malware. I'm told (but
do not completely believe) that Mac computers do not suffer from
malware. So it's a big mystery how your email can "bloat" the file.

If the "bloating" is caused by you editing the Word document and
inserting graphics in whatever way you are doing it... well, that is
probably not "bloat". I suspect that is what is really happening, but
you never seem to say that. That is the way the software works. The
people replying here have given sage advice about how to put graphics
into a document in different ways. Again, that's how the software
works. It will insert the graphics in ways that it will do it and these
different ways result in the graphics going into the file in different
ways.

You are using Apple Mac version of Word and apparently your colleagues
are using Windows version of Word. They are two different bits of
software which share only a document format (perhaps some source code
but that a detail). If you used Windows versin of Word like your
colleagues the odds are they would experience the same file sizes as you.

My suggestion is that you not consider this a problem. It is working.
Probably as designed. Could it work "better" and not "bloat". I don't
know and I actually doubt it. The software is doing what its makers
told it to do.

Perhaps you are expecting more, but my hunch is that this is not a
problem (unless it is in fact your email which is "bloating the file"
and that, my friend, is a problem worth fixing).

Glad the the real problem--getting the document out today--is working!

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

Hi John,

Thanks for this.

My editor uses outlook and the file would not normally be compressed. I
receive it in entourage. In any case, this doesn't explain why it grows from
17mb to 22mb when I try to send it.

I'm afraid the PNG was rather poor quality. The image was a diagram with
labels and such. The resolution was considerably poorer than had I just cut-
and-pasted. Same thing for jpg.

This is all helping though folks. I've yet to test some of these theories for
lack of time. (We're releasing the document today, so have been caught up
with the preparation. I've been working around the 'bloat' problem as much as
possible. Even so, it's cost me time.

Michael

Well, he doesn't mention that because he may not be aware of it. But that's
almost certainly what is happening

His editor sends him an email containing a 6 MB PDF attachment. It was
probably 17 MB on her disk, but if she sent using Entourage or another
advanced email program (e.g. Lotus Notes) it would automatically Zip the
attachment without her being aware of it. 17 MB will become 6 MB if the
content is mainly text.

When he gets the email, he can see the file is 6 MB. When he saves it, his
email program helpfully unzips it for him, and it's back to 17 or 22 MB or
so. That's all normal operation, except that neither email program is
telling the users what is happening. Don't worry about the apparent
disparity in file size: it depends on how the system is counting it and what
it is actually counting. Open the file and look at the "number of bytes"
and you will see they are the same size.

The bottom line is that PDF is generally too big to email anywhere, which is
why I suggested emailing the file as .docx. The .docx format is tightly
compressed natively, you don't have to bother zipping it (it IS a zip
file!).

As to PNG losing quality, it doesn't. That's the purpose of its existence.
PNG was created to avoid the quality loss inherent with JPEG and GIF. So if
you get poor quality results with PNG it's because the input was poor
quality: probably because you tried to make them from a JPEG.

The difference is that JPEG removes detail to preserve colour. PNG removes
colour to preserve detail. Which makes JPEG a good choice for photos of
people, because it gets the face tones correct. Use PNG for everything
else, because it preserves the resolution.

The only better choice for quality is EPS, which offers unlimited resolution
and colour, but you will have trouble with them outside the professional
publishing industry. EPS and its siblings need high-end graphics
applications installed to work correctly.

Also: When we came in to this discussion, the complaint was about file size:
adding EPS graphics to the mix would be a giant leap in the wrong direction
if that's the problem we are trying to solve

Hope this helps

Isn't the O.P. saying that he receives PDF file and when they save they
bloat. He mentions nothing about unzipping or extracting them from a

[quoted text clipped - 48 lines]

Finally, in any case, Acrobat's "reduce file size" command work well.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Michael:

When you make a PNG image, one of the settings you specify is the
"resolution". This is not a "fault" with the PNG image format, it's a
setting you need to make. If you set the quality to "low", that's what you
will indeed get

Many programs such as Microsoft Office will set the quality very low if you
say you want to "email" the result. Often they will cut it to 96 dpi.

For laser printing, you need to override the automatics and set 300 dpi.
For offset printing, you need to set at least 1200 dpi (preferably 9600).

And, of course, the higher the quality, the bigger the file

An 8-1/2 x 11 page at 96 dpi is 215,424 bytes. At 300 dpi it's 673,200, at
1,200 dpi it is 2,692,800 and at 9,600 dpi it is 21,542,400.

The real benefit of PNG is that it compresses the file by 20 to 1, so the
actual sizes on disk are 1/20th of the above.

But if you get poor quality from a PNG, it's because you set the quality too
low for your purpose when you made it.

I don't remember if anyone discussed the "Dual Format Images" problem in
this thread, but that may also have a bearing on the result.

If you create a document full of images, Word stores the images in the
document, in the native format for that platform. If you manipulate the
images in ANY way (say, by stretching or reducing them slightly) after you
have inserted them into the document, Word stores another copy of the image,
with your changes applied. So unless you manipulate the images outside Word
first, and insert only the finished, sized, adjusted image into the
document, Word will always store two copies of every image: the unchanged
original, and the changed version.

If you then send that document to a cross-platform version of Word, the
receiving copy of Word will convert those images into the native formats for
the platform it is running on. It does NOT remove the original, or the
changed version of each image. So for each image you now have four copies
in the document, an original and a converted version in PNG, and an original
and a changed version in PICT.

You may notice the file puts on a little weight if you allow this to happen
The key is: "Use graphics software to finalise images, and don't insert
until it's exactly the way you want to print it. Then use
Insert>Picture>From File... To insert only a single version of the image, at
exactly the size and resolution you intend to print.

If you choose PNG as your image format, Word will leave it alone, on either
platform. As it will with EPS, but the "preview" in the document will look
very low quality.

Hope this helps

Hi John,

Thanks for this.

My editor uses outlook and the file would not normally be compressed. I
receive it in entourage. In any case, this doesn't explain why it grows from
17mb to 22mb when I try to send it.

I'm afraid the PNG was rather poor quality. The image was a diagram with
labels and such. The resolution was considerably poorer than had I just cut-
and-pasted. Same thing for jpg.

This is all helping though folks. I've yet to test some of these theories for
lack of time. (We're releasing the document today, so have been caught up
with the preparation. I've been working around the 'bloat' problem as much as
possible. Even so, it's cost me time.

Michael

Well, he doesn't mention that because he may not be aware of it. But that's
almost certainly what is happening

His editor sends him an email containing a 6 MB PDF attachment. It was
probably 17 MB on her disk, but if she sent using Entourage or another
advanced email program (e.g. Lotus Notes) it would automatically Zip the
attachment without her being aware of it. 17 MB will become 6 MB if the
content is mainly text.

When he gets the email, he can see the file is 6 MB. When he saves it, his
email program helpfully unzips it for him, and it's back to 17 or 22 MB or
so. That's all normal operation, except that neither email program is
telling the users what is happening. Don't worry about the apparent
disparity in file size: it depends on how the system is counting it and what
it is actually counting. Open the file and look at the "number of bytes"
and you will see they are the same size.

The bottom line is that PDF is generally too big to email anywhere, which is
why I suggested emailing the file as .docx. The .docx format is tightly
compressed natively, you don't have to bother zipping it (it IS a zip
file!).

As to PNG losing quality, it doesn't. That's the purpose of its existence.
PNG was created to avoid the quality loss inherent with JPEG and GIF. So if
you get poor quality results with PNG it's because the input was poor
quality: probably because you tried to make them from a JPEG.

The difference is that JPEG removes detail to preserve colour. PNG removes
colour to preserve detail. Which makes JPEG a good choice for photos of
people, because it gets the face tones correct. Use PNG for everything
else, because it preserves the resolution.

The only better choice for quality is EPS, which offers unlimited resolution
and colour, but you will have trouble with them outside the professional
publishing industry. EPS and its siblings need high-end graphics
applications installed to work correctly.

Also: When we came in to this discussion, the complaint was about file size:
adding EPS graphics to the mix would be a giant leap in the wrong direction
if that's the problem we are trying to solve

Hope this helps

Isn't the O.P. saying that he receives PDF file and when they save they
bloat. He mentions nothing about unzipping or extracting them from a

[quoted text clipped - 48 lines]

Finally, in any case, Acrobat's "reduce file size" command work well.

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[MichaelC via MacKB.com]

John, this is tremendously helpful. Thankyou.

Incidentally, I solved the mystery of the bloating file and it's as simple as
this:

Without thinking, I opened the file attached to my editor's email in Preview
and saved it from there. Seems I made a silly mistake, though I suppose it
stems with unfamiliarity.

I want to thank all of you who took the time to help. All your advice and
insights have notched me along the learning curve.

many thanks
Michael

Hi Michael:

When you make a PNG image, one of the settings you specify is the
"resolution". This is not a "fault" with the PNG image format, it's a
setting you need to make. If you set the quality to "low", that's what you
will indeed get

Many programs such as Microsoft Office will set the quality very low if you
say you want to "email" the result. Often they will cut it to 96 dpi.

For laser printing, you need to override the automatics and set 300 dpi.
For offset printing, you need to set at least 1200 dpi (preferably 9600).

And, of course, the higher the quality, the bigger the file

An 8-1/2 x 11 page at 96 dpi is 215,424 bytes. At 300 dpi it's 673,200, at
1,200 dpi it is 2,692,800 and at 9,600 dpi it is 21,542,400.

The real benefit of PNG is that it compresses the file by 20 to 1, so the
actual sizes on disk are 1/20th of the above.

But if you get poor quality from a PNG, it's because you set the quality too
low for your purpose when you made it.

I don't remember if anyone discussed the "Dual Format Images" problem in
this thread, but that may also have a bearing on the result.

If you create a document full of images, Word stores the images in the
document, in the native format for that platform. If you manipulate the
images in ANY way (say, by stretching or reducing them slightly) after you
have inserted them into the document, Word stores another copy of the image,
with your changes applied. So unless you manipulate the images outside Word
first, and insert only the finished, sized, adjusted image into the
document, Word will always store two copies of every image: the unchanged
original, and the changed version.

If you then send that document to a cross-platform version of Word, the
receiving copy of Word will convert those images into the native formats for
the platform it is running on. It does NOT remove the original, or the
changed version of each image. So for each image you now have four copies
in the document, an original and a converted version in PNG, and an original
and a changed version in PICT.

You may notice the file puts on a little weight if you allow this to happen
The key is: "Use graphics software to finalise images, and don't insert
until it's exactly the way you want to print it. Then use
Insert>Picture>From File... To insert only a single version of the image, at
exactly the size and resolution you intend to print.

If you choose PNG as your image format, Word will leave it alone, on either
platform. As it will with EPS, but the "preview" in the document will look
very low quality.

Hope this helps

Hi John,

[quoted text clipped - 66 lines]
This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hi John,

If you then send that document to a cross-platform version of Word, the
receiving copy of Word will convert those images into the native formats for
the platform it is running on. It does NOT remove the original, or the
changed version of each image. So for each image you now have four copies
in the document, an original and a converted version in PNG, and an original
and a changed version in PICT.

I wish Word had a "cleanup the file" command :-(


Corentin

 

[John McGhie]

Ah hah! Yep, that would do it

Preview may have saved it in RTF, which is about four times bigger than doc
and about eight times bigger than .docx (depending on what's in it and how
it is made...).

I have seen professionally made RTF files that are TINY compared to the
equivalent Word document.

Cheers

John, this is tremendously helpful. Thankyou.

Incidentally, I solved the mystery of the bloating file and it's as simple as
this:

Without thinking, I opened the file attached to my editor's email in Preview
and saved it from there. Seems I made a silly mistake, though I suppose it
stems with unfamiliarity.

I want to thank all of you who took the time to help. All your advice and
insights have notched me along the learning curve.

many thanks
Michael

Hi Michael:

When you make a PNG image, one of the settings you specify is the
"resolution". This is not a "fault" with the PNG image format, it's a
setting you need to make. If you set the quality to "low", that's what you
will indeed get

Many programs such as Microsoft Office will set the quality very low if you
say you want to "email" the result. Often they will cut it to 96 dpi.

For laser printing, you need to override the automatics and set 300 dpi.
For offset printing, you need to set at least 1200 dpi (preferably 9600).

And, of course, the higher the quality, the bigger the file

An 8-1/2 x 11 page at 96 dpi is 215,424 bytes. At 300 dpi it's 673,200, at
1,200 dpi it is 2,692,800 and at 9,600 dpi it is 21,542,400.

The real benefit of PNG is that it compresses the file by 20 to 1, so the
actual sizes on disk are 1/20th of the above.

But if you get poor quality from a PNG, it's because you set the quality too
low for your purpose when you made it.

I don't remember if anyone discussed the "Dual Format Images" problem in
this thread, but that may also have a bearing on the result.

If you create a document full of images, Word stores the images in the
document, in the native format for that platform. If you manipulate the
images in ANY way (say, by stretching or reducing them slightly) after you
have inserted them into the document, Word stores another copy of the image,
with your changes applied. So unless you manipulate the images outside Word
first, and insert only the finished, sized, adjusted image into the
document, Word will always store two copies of every image: the unchanged
original, and the changed version.

If you then send that document to a cross-platform version of Word, the
receiving copy of Word will convert those images into the native formats for
the platform it is running on. It does NOT remove the original, or the
changed version of each image. So for each image you now have four copies
in the document, an original and a converted version in PNG, and an original
and a changed version in PICT.

You may notice the file puts on a little weight if you allow this to happen
The key is: "Use graphics software to finalise images, and don't insert
until it's exactly the way you want to print it. Then use
Insert>Picture>From File... To insert only a single version of the image, at
exactly the size and resolution you intend to print.

If you choose PNG as your image format, Word will leave it alone, on either
platform. As it will with EPS, but the "preview" in the document will look
very low quality.

Hope this helps

Hi John,

[quoted text clipped - 66 lines]

Finally, in any case, Acrobat's "reduce file size" command work well.

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[John McGhie]

Well, in .docx you can "make" one

If you have a VBA-enabled copy of Word, you could iterate the Images
collection and throw out anything that is not part of the Shapes collection


Cheers

Hi John,



I wish Word had a "cleanup the file" command :-(


Corentin

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Rob Schneider]

I *knew* some program was changing the file and it was not Word. As you
described it, the "email" program was the target culprit. Who would
have thought?

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

John, this is tremendously helpful. Thankyou.

Incidentally, I solved the mystery of the bloating file and it's as simple as
this:

Without thinking, I opened the file attached to my editor's email in Preview
and saved it from there. Seems I made a silly mistake, though I suppose it
stems with unfamiliarity.

I want to thank all of you who took the time to help. All your advice and
insights have notched me along the learning curve.

many thanks
Michael

Hi Michael:

When you make a PNG image, one of the settings you specify is the
"resolution". This is not a "fault" with the PNG image format, it's a
setting you need to make. If you set the quality to "low", that's what you
will indeed get

Many programs such as Microsoft Office will set the quality very low if you
say you want to "email" the result. Often they will cut it to 96 dpi.

For laser printing, you need to override the automatics and set 300 dpi.
For offset printing, you need to set at least 1200 dpi (preferably 9600).

And, of course, the higher the quality, the bigger the file

An 8-1/2 x 11 page at 96 dpi is 215,424 bytes. At 300 dpi it's 673,200, at
1,200 dpi it is 2,692,800 and at 9,600 dpi it is 21,542,400.

The real benefit of PNG is that it compresses the file by 20 to 1, so the
actual sizes on disk are 1/20th of the above.

But if you get poor quality from a PNG, it's because you set the quality too
low for your purpose when you made it.

I don't remember if anyone discussed the "Dual Format Images" problem in
this thread, but that may also have a bearing on the result.

If you create a document full of images, Word stores the images in the
document, in the native format for that platform. If you manipulate the
images in ANY way (say, by stretching or reducing them slightly) after you
have inserted them into the document, Word stores another copy of the image,
with your changes applied. So unless you manipulate the images outside Word
first, and insert only the finished, sized, adjusted image into the
document, Word will always store two copies of every image: the unchanged
original, and the changed version.

If you then send that document to a cross-platform version of Word, the
receiving copy of Word will convert those images into the native formats for
the platform it is running on. It does NOT remove the original, or the
changed version of each image. So for each image you now have four copies
in the document, an original and a converted version in PNG, and an original
and a changed version in PICT.

You may notice the file puts on a little weight if you allow this to happen
The key is: "Use graphics software to finalise images, and don't insert
until it's exactly the way you want to print it. Then use
Insert>Picture>From File... To insert only a single version of the image, at
exactly the size and resolution you intend to print.

If you choose PNG as your image format, Word will leave it alone, on either
platform. As it will with EPS, but the "preview" in the document will look
very low quality.

Hope this helps

Hi John,

[quoted text clipped - 66 lines]

Finally, in any case, Acrobat's "reduce file size" command work well.

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[John McGhie]

Yeah, well this is the downside of "Making it easy for the user" ‹ the poor
damn user has no idea what is happening

Cheers

I *knew* some program was changing the file and it was not Word. As you
described it, the "email" program was the target culprit. Who would
have thought?

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

John, this is tremendously helpful. Thankyou.

Incidentally, I solved the mystery of the bloating file and it's as simple as
this:

Without thinking, I opened the file attached to my editor's email in Preview
and saved it from there. Seems I made a silly mistake, though I suppose it
stems with unfamiliarity.

I want to thank all of you who took the time to help. All your advice and
insights have notched me along the learning curve.

many thanks
Michael

Hi Michael:

When you make a PNG image, one of the settings you specify is the
"resolution". This is not a "fault" with the PNG image format, it's a
setting you need to make. If you set the quality to "low", that's what you
will indeed get

Many programs such as Microsoft Office will set the quality very low if you
say you want to "email" the result. Often they will cut it to 96 dpi.

For laser printing, you need to override the automatics and set 300 dpi.
For offset printing, you need to set at least 1200 dpi (preferably 9600).

And, of course, the higher the quality, the bigger the file

An 8-1/2 x 11 page at 96 dpi is 215,424 bytes. At 300 dpi it's 673,200, at
1,200 dpi it is 2,692,800 and at 9,600 dpi it is 21,542,400.

The real benefit of PNG is that it compresses the file by 20 to 1, so the
actual sizes on disk are 1/20th of the above.

But if you get poor quality from a PNG, it's because you set the quality too
low for your purpose when you made it.

I don't remember if anyone discussed the "Dual Format Images" problem in
this thread, but that may also have a bearing on the result.

If you create a document full of images, Word stores the images in the
document, in the native format for that platform. If you manipulate the
images in ANY way (say, by stretching or reducing them slightly) after you
have inserted them into the document, Word stores another copy of the image,
with your changes applied. So unless you manipulate the images outside Word
first, and insert only the finished, sized, adjusted image into the
document, Word will always store two copies of every image: the unchanged
original, and the changed version.

If you then send that document to a cross-platform version of Word, the
receiving copy of Word will convert those images into the native formats for
the platform it is running on. It does NOT remove the original, or the
changed version of each image. So for each image you now have four copies
in the document, an original and a converted version in PNG, and an original
and a changed version in PICT.

You may notice the file puts on a little weight if you allow this to happen
The key is: "Use graphics software to finalise images, and don't insert
until it's exactly the way you want to print it. Then use
Insert>Picture>From File... To insert only a single version of the image, at
exactly the size and resolution you intend to print.

If you choose PNG as your image format, Word will leave it alone, on either
platform. As it will with EPS, but the "preview" in the document will look
very low quality.

Hope this helps

On 13/10/09 7:06 PM, in article 9d85643842e3e@uwe, "MichaelC via MacKB.com"

Hi John,

[quoted text clipped - 66 lines]
Finally, in any case, Acrobat's "reduce file size" command work well.
This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Rob Schneider]

Driving license req'd.

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

Yeah, well this is the downside of "Making it easy for the user" ‹ the poor
damn user has no idea what is happening

Cheers

I *knew* some program was changing the file and it was not Word. As you
described it, the "email" program was the target culprit. Who would
have thought?

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

John, this is tremendously helpful. Thankyou.

Incidentally, I solved the mystery of the bloating file and it's as simple as
this:

Without thinking, I opened the file attached to my editor's email in Preview
and saved it from there. Seems I made a silly mistake, though I suppose it
stems with unfamiliarity.

I want to thank all of you who took the time to help. All your advice and
insights have notched me along the learning curve.

many thanks
Michael

John McGhie wrote:
Hi Michael:

When you make a PNG image, one of the settings you specify is the
"resolution". This is not a "fault" with the PNG image format, it's a
setting you need to make. If you set the quality to "low", that's what you
will indeed get

Many programs such as Microsoft Office will set the quality very low if you
say you want to "email" the result. Often they will cut it to 96 dpi.

For laser printing, you need to override the automatics and set 300 dpi.
For offset printing, you need to set at least 1200 dpi (preferably 9600).

And, of course, the higher the quality, the bigger the file

An 8-1/2 x 11 page at 96 dpi is 215,424 bytes. At 300 dpi it's 673,200, at
1,200 dpi it is 2,692,800 and at 9,600 dpi it is 21,542,400.

The real benefit of PNG is that it compresses the file by 20 to 1, so the
actual sizes on disk are 1/20th of the above.

But if you get poor quality from a PNG, it's because you set the quality too
low for your purpose when you made it.

I don't remember if anyone discussed the "Dual Format Images" problem in
this thread, but that may also have a bearing on the result.

If you create a document full of images, Word stores the images in the
document, in the native format for that platform. If you manipulate the
images in ANY way (say, by stretching or reducing them slightly) after you
have inserted them into the document, Word stores another copy of the image,
with your changes applied. So unless you manipulate the images outside Word
first, and insert only the finished, sized, adjusted image into the
document, Word will always store two copies of every image: the unchanged
original, and the changed version.

If you then send that document to a cross-platform version of Word, the
receiving copy of Word will convert those images into the native formats for
the platform it is running on. It does NOT remove the original, or the
changed version of each image. So for each image you now have four copies
in the document, an original and a converted version in PNG, and an original
and a changed version in PICT.

You may notice the file puts on a little weight if you allow this to happen
The key is: "Use graphics software to finalise images, and don't insert
until it's exactly the way you want to print it. Then use
Insert>Picture>From File... To insert only a single version of the image, at
exactly the size and resolution you intend to print.

If you choose PNG as your image format, Word will leave it alone, on either
platform. As it will with EPS, but the "preview" in the document will look
very low quality.

Hope this helps

On 13/10/09 7:06 PM, in article 9d85643842e3e@uwe, "MichaelC via MacKB.com"

Hi John,

[quoted text clipped - 66 lines]
Finally, in any case, Acrobat's "reduce file size" command work well.
This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Well, in .docx you can "make" one

If you have a VBA-enabled copy of Word, you could iterate the Images
collection and throw out anything that is not part of the Shapes collection

Well that would require going to work on a Windows machine and it's
something I try not to do unless I don;t have a choice (plus I'd have to
learn VBA...).

I might pass on the offer John ;-)

Corentin