Why was the file so large?

[Oliver Walter]

How can the "same" document be a 990 kb file or a 38 kb file?
(I've looked at Microsoft's help in removing metadata, but that
answers a slightly different question and doesn't explain my
situation.)

I was sent a Word document (probably made with Word 2000) as a file
of 990 kb. It contained 4 pages of text and a small picture.
I opened it with Word 2000, deleted a "space" character, typed the
"space" again, and saved the document.
The resulting file was 38 kb, and appears to be exactly the same
document.

That's all I did: nothing clever like removing hidden text,
accepting revisions, disabling fast saves etc.

I would like to know:
(a) What was removed by my simple editing action?
(b) What is a simple way for the creator of a document to ensure
that it is "small" when saved, not gigantic?

I suspect that the answer to (b) is: close the document, exit Word,
re-open the
doc, make any change, undo the change and save the doc again.

I'd still like to know the answer to (a), even if my answer to (b)
is correct.

 

[m-j-l]

How can the "same" document be a 990 kb file or a 38 kb file?
(I've looked at Microsoft's help in removing metadata, but that
answers a slightly different question and doesn't explain my
situation.)

I was sent a Word document (probably made with Word 2000) as a file
of 990 kb. It contained 4 pages of text and a small picture.
I opened it with Word 2000, deleted a "space" character, typed the
"space" again, and saved the document.
The resulting file was 38 kb, and appears to be exactly the same
document.

That's all I did: nothing clever like removing hidden text,
accepting revisions, disabling fast saves etc.

I would like to know:
(a) What was removed by my simple editing action?
(b) What is a simple way for the creator of a document to ensure
that it is "small" when saved, not gigantic?

I suspect that the answer to (b) is: close the document, exit Word,
re-open the
doc, make any change, undo the change and save the doc again.

I'd still like to know the answer to (a), even if my answer to (b)
is correct.

Oliver - see my thread Massive Document Size - no answer yet - opening
and closing makes my file 30k bigger each time

 

[jmacleve]

Did you "save" or "save as" the document? Save As will reduce document
size. Also, it's possible (if you don't track changes) -- maybe the
person before you was tracking changes? And that info got saved when
they saved the doc and washed out when you did?

 

[jmacleve]

Did you "save" or "save as" the document? Save As will reduce document
size. Also, it's possible (if you don't track changes) -- maybe the
person before you was tracking changes? And that info got saved when
they saved the doc and washed out when you did?