How does word embed graphics?

[Jim Wood]

I have an application that coverts PDFs into various formats, which then can
be imorted into Word. I converted one CAD drawing to a .TIF, and it was an
enormous 24Megs. But when I placed this image on a single 8-1/2x11 page in a
Word .doc, the Word file only went up a couple of Megs. Then I converted my
PDF to a more manageable 4Meg .GIF file and tried importing that instead.
The Word file still went up the same couple of Megs. This makes me wonder,
'just how does Word embed a graphic, and what are the resolution
implications?' Many thanks.

 

[Jezebel]

All graphics are converted to WMF on insertion. The quality of that
conversion appears to depend -- somewhat unpredictably -- on various
features of the source format. Some graphic formats include a lot of
additional information (like layering), that Word discards -- which is
presumably what's happening with your CAD-TIFF file.

Word assumes that imported graphics have the same resolution as your screen,
regardless of the sizing information in the graphic. So if your original is
10cm at 300 dpi, Word will import it as 31.25cm at 96 dpi. You can scale it
back to 10cm, of course.

Best practice seems to be to prepare the graphic first using a graphic
editor, to the finished size and resolution you want. Then save it. Then
import it to Word from file.