Inflated document sizes on Windows XP version of MS Word 2003

[Stacey Blaney]

I am trying to find a way to reduce the document size of a word document when
using MS Word for Windows in Office 2003 Professional. I created a simple
document template to be used as letterhead on the Mac version of Word. When I
save the document on the Mac it is 150KB. When I open the template on the Mac
and enter some content and save it, the document grows to 154KB, perfectly
acceptable.

When I open the same letterhead document on MS Word 2003 on Windows and add
a few sentences the document jumps to 4MB +; a whole page of text will bring
it to almost 6MB. Then if I reopen the same document on the Mac, make a small
edit and save it, it goes back down to 154KB.

Can someone help me figure out a way to stop this from happening? It should
not be a different size on Windows then it is on the Mac OS, should it?

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Stacey:

Yes. That's a design bug in Mac Word. It is expanding the vector
illustration from the Windows template into a bitmap and storing it in the
document.

You can prevent this happening by using an external image. Link the image
into the template but do NOT embed it in the document. Make sure the image
file is in the same folder as the document (not a sub-folder).

This way, the image will not be saved into the document by either copy of
Word and the size will stay the same.

Cheers

I am trying to find a way to reduce the document size of a word document when
using MS Word for Windows in Office 2003 Professional. I created a simple
document template to be used as letterhead on the Mac version of Word. When I
save the document on the Mac it is 150KB. When I open the template on the Mac
and enter some content and save it, the document grows to 154KB, perfectly
acceptable.

When I open the same letterhead document on MS Word 2003 on Windows and add
a few sentences the document jumps to 4MB +; a whole page of text will bring
it to almost 6MB. Then if I reopen the same document on the Mac, make a small
edit and save it, it goes back down to 154KB.

Can someone help me figure out a way to stop this from happening? It should
not be a different size on Windows then it is on the Mac OS, should it?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[stuartbell]

John, Any chance you have a typo below? The document was about the
right size in the MAC and 50 times or so as large in Windows. The MAC
seems right, WINDOWS seems to have the bug (or maybe a design
difference)?

Stacy: In any case, I believe if you save the document as an HTML page
on Windows, the HTML process will create a GIF for the original vector
diagram. If you delete the diagram and imbed the GIF, the resultant
template will be nearly the MAC size. Not perfect, but maybe an
acceptable work around.??.

BTW, is this fixed in the new version?

/Stu (e-mail address removed)

 

[Stacey Blaney]

Thank you for your reply. I wondered how I can have my client use this as a
template document then, he wants to be able to create a letter with his
letterhead information on it. If we store the graphics externally he won't be
able to send the letter by email to a customer without adding in the extra
graphics file, which will then still increase the size of the email message,
right?

I guess he could just do a pdf of the document once he finishes it. I'll
test doing it that way.

Thanks,
Stacey