inflated file size

[alan]

I was working on a small document and noticed that my system resources
could not handle it. I am working on a Pentium M 1.7 ghz with 1 gb of
RAM. I discovered that the file size was 102 MB. When I copied and
pasted the text into a new document (same formatting), the doc was 40
kb! So the file had inflated to about 250 times what it should have
been.

One thing I wonder about is that I had tried to add a graphic file as
part of the edit - but had eventually deleted it.

Does anyone have any ideas about what might have happened?

 

[ChazE911]

If you have autosave enabled, Office tends to 'remember' all of the
changes that were made to a document. This leads to some file size
inflation over the course of time, but graphics are particularly
annoying in this respect.

The easiest solution is to just save the file you're working on as a
new file. Compare the sizes and you'll usually see a reduction in
size, just like you did when you cut and pasted your text into a new
document.

The down side of this is that you lose the history of the document -
original creation date, number of minutes open for editing, etc.