Why would compress picture in Word not have any effect ?

[Koen Van den Brande]

I am used to producing a Word newsletter for friends and family with lots of
pictures. I alsways use compress pictures to reduce the size dramatically
without problems.
I am now using someone else's computer and compress pictures does not have
any effect at all. Even using the lowest setting and a single picture it
doggedly remains at 1.7MB.
Is there some sort of setting controlling this ?
I was able to reduce the size of the JPEG picture through Photo Editor
without a problem.
The only other difference is that I have started to use a new Casio digital
camera whereas previously I was using a slightly older model.
Any suggestions on how to resolve this appreciated.

 

[Igor Belkin]

Dear Koen,

I have a similar problem.
I am trying to compress JPEG images that have been previously inserted
into a Word file. Even though I seemingly CAN use "Compress Picture" feature
of my Word 2000, the feature does NOT work!? I click all the necessary
buttons, but the result is zero: The file size remains the same. However,
the same feature works in case of a PowerPoint file with JPEG images inserted.
So it seems, contrary to a nice explanation given on
http://www.clarion.edu/academic/adeptt/ltc/dausel/ppt/compress.htm,
this feature does work on Power Point files but does NOT work on Word files.

Best regards,
Igor

 

[Adrian]

Maybe your graphic is already less than 200dpi in Word?

One way to check this:

i. Save the Word file as HTML...the graphics will be stripped to a
subfolder. You will see the full size "source" file plus a smaller version
used to represent the graphic if it has been resized inside Word. (I put
"source" in quotation marks because if you have already compressed the
graphic in Word then the compressed file will be what you see here, not the
original.)

ii. Open the "source" image up in a graphics program to find the number of
pixels in the width.

iii. In Word, determine the width of the graphic in inches (right-click it
and select Format Picture). (If the width shows up in points, you can change
this using the Options command on the Tools menu.)

iv. Divide the number of pixels by the width. If it is 200 or less, then you
won't be able to compress it further (unless you compress it to 96dpi...the
other Word option intended for docs that will be displayed on screen.)

(Note that "dpi resolution" is not a characteristic of an image file, but of
the way that an image is displayed on screen or paper.)

Adrian

 

[Igor Belkin]

Dear Adrian,

Thanks a lot for your advice.
I will certainly try it.
Meanwhile, Ian Savell suggested a simple solution - use Word XP 2003
instead of 2000 - and he was right, at least partly:

I tried Word XP 2003 and it worked, as suggested - but only on a test file
with four images.
It did not work on a bigger file (18 MB) with 16 similar images.

Finally, I gave up and
(1) compressed original PNG images with MS Photo Editor 2000 by choosing
Palette (256 colors, 8 bits) instead of True Colors (24 bits), which resulted
in a compression ratio of about 3.
(2) resized these images with the same MS Photo Editor 2000 by 50%.
(3) inserted the compressed+resized images into a Word document.

The final Word document is about 8 times smaller than the original one, 2.3
MB vs 18 MB; however its quality is almost as good as the original's quality:
Even under a 500% zoom, the inserted images are crisp.

Best regards,
Igor