What Advantages Does .docx have over .doc? Any?

[edj]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I understood that one of the advantages of the XML format used in Word 2008 was smaller file size. I'm for that because my files in Word tend to get larger and larger as multi page docs are worked on in track changes. But what I'm finding is that Word 2008 files are usually MUCH larger than files saved in the old .doc.
Consequently, I'm thinking I'm just going to go back to saving files in .doc which most of the people I work with still use anyway.I was going to persuade everyone to switch to Word 2008 or use the converter but I don't see any point to this.
Am I missing something?

 

[John McGhie]

Hmmm... Yes, something is missing here

A Word .doc file saved to .docx should shrink by about 75 per cent.

However: If the files contain a lot of graphics, and the graphics are
involved with the tracked changes, then the files will grow dramatically in
either format.

If you have tracked changes on and you MOVE a picture, Word hides the
picture in the old location and copies it to the new location -- instantly
doubling the file size.

The .docx format is compressed (Zipped) Unicode text, which is VERY
compressible. However, the graphics are stored in their native format which
is already compressed, so they won't get any smaller.

Hope this helps

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I understood that one of the advantages of the XML format used in Word 2008
was smaller file size. I'm for that because my files in Word tend to get
larger and larger as multi page docs are worked on in track changes. But what
I'm finding is that Word 2008 files are usually MUCH larger than files saved
in the old .doc.
Consequently, I'm thinking I'm just going to go back to saving files in .doc
which most of the people I work with still use anyway.I was going to persuade
everyone to switch to Word 2008 or use the converter but I don't see any point
to this.
Am I missing something?

--

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
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[edj]

Hi John,
Thanks for your reply.

Something is definitely not right.

I've taken a number of my Word .doc files at randon that have no track changes or images and saving them to .docx increases the file size 3X. A 40KB file becomes almost 150 KB!!

Also, if a start a new doc and type the same info in a .doc and .docx the .docx is always larger though not 3X.

I'm wondering if there is something embedded in my Word .doc that I'm not aware of?

Thanks for your help.

 

[John McGhie]

Could be some junk in your Normal template?

Quit Word and drag Normal.dotm to your desktop.

Have a hunt around and make sure there is nothing else on your system called
"Normal" -- the previous version of the Normal template did not have a file
extension. Move that to the desktop too.

If there is an old version there, Word will copy it into the new one. That
would do it...

Then restart Word. Word will create a new fresh Normal.dotm without any
junk in it.

When I create a new blank document with one word in it and save it as a
..docx, it ends up as 24 kb on disk. The .doc version is 28 kb (because with
only one word in it, there's not much to compress )

See if that helps.

Hi John,
Thanks for your reply.

Something is definitely not right.

I've taken a number of my Word .doc files at randon that have no track changes
or images and saving them to .docx increases the file size 3X. A 40KB file
becomes almost 150 KB!!

Also, if a start a new doc and type the same info in a .doc and .docx the
.docx is always larger though not 3X.

I'm wondering if there is something embedded in my Word .doc that I'm not
aware of?

Thanks for your help.

--

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
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[edj]

Thanks for your reply.

I found a Normal Word 2004 file and trashed it. I didn't find any .dotm using Spotlight. Also no "Normal" files

I opened Word again and I created a new file with one sentence. .doc was 24KB and .docx was 32KB. Seems the opposite of what should be happening.

I still have Word 2004 on my computer. Could that be a problem?

 

[John McGhie]

No: Your results are about correct, for a one-sentence document.

There's a few kilobytes of "structural information" involved in creating the
internal workings of a Word document. In this case, you only have about 25
bytes of text. The structure of a .docx is a bit more complicated than a
..doc, so there's a bit more pipe-work and gears and cogs involved in the
"machinery".

Try copying in a few hundred pages of "real" text and tables and styles and
whatever, then save that as .doc and .docx, and then you will see a large
difference.

Cheers

Thanks for your reply.

I found a Normal Word 2004 file and trashed it. I didn't find any .dotm using
Spotlight. Also no "Normal" files

I opened Word again and I created a new file with one sentence. .doc was 24KB
and .docx was 32KB. Seems the opposite of what should be happening.

I still have Word 2004 on my computer. Could that be a problem?

--

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
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[edj]

Hi John,

You are right. For a 300 page document the .docx was 740KB and the .doc was 2.1MB BUT for most of my word documents which are 1-20 pages of simple text or text with track changes the .docx is at least double the size of .doc so for me I don't get the file size advantage.

I'm going to continue to use Word 2008, because I like the way it looks and works a bit better than Word 2004 (and I paid for it) but I don't really see much advantage at this point.

Thanks very much for staying with me on this.

Ed

 

[John McGhie]

Well, there are many other advantages that .docx has over .doc, but that one
is the easiest to understand

A .docx is very much more reliable that a .doc, because it's content is all
ASCII. It is very difficult to "break" letters. The content of a .doc is
largely binary -- a one-bit glitch on the disk and you've lost it!

In the future, there will be many other advantages available. Well, the
advantages are "available" now, but not in Microsoft Office for Mac.

Because the content of a .docx is machine-readable, you can use it to tie
all the documents in a corporation together into a giant encyclopaedia so
everyone's knowledge can be used by everyone else.

But file size and reliability will do it for me, for now

Cheers

Hi John,

You are right. For a 300 page document the .docx was 740KB and the .doc was
2.1MB BUT for most of my word documents which are 1-20 pages of simple text or
text with track changes the .docx is at least double the size of .doc so for
me I don't get the file size advantage.

I'm going to continue to use Word 2008, because I like the way it looks and
works a bit better than Word 2004 (and I paid for it) but I don't really see
much advantage at this point.

Thanks very much for staying with me on this.

Ed

--

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
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]