Word 2008 creates absurdly huge RTFs - any workarounds or fixes?

[Bella]

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

I have just upgraded to Word 2008 from 2004.

For some reason, when saving a Word 2008 doc to RTF, the RTF size turns out to be enormous compared to when saved from Word 2004.

We're not talking about double the size or triple, but more like ten times - enough to make it a real life problem.

I have to supply clients with RTF files to post on their websites, and understandably their webmasters are telling me they don't want the RTFs Word 2008 is making as they're way too large for the content involved.

Is there a fix or workaround for this? Any insights appreciated... thanks!

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Bella:

One of the tricks is to avoid the .doc format in Word 2008. Use .docx
instead.

When you use .doc, Word 2008 will often save two copies of everything in the
document, one in the "old" format, and one in the "new" format.

The other thing you need to do is to ensure that you have RESOLVED any
Tracked Changes before saving. If you leave change tracking on and simply
hide them, they will still be stored in the document and you get file bloat.

Another thing to be aware of is "pictures". Use a graphics application to
reduce any pictures you are using to only the size and resolution you intend
to display. For use on the web, you should set 96 dpi, and size the picture
so it displays at the size you want when set to 100 per cent size.

It is very tempting to grab a corner of an inserted picture and drag it to
the size you want: and if you are not sending the file anywhere else, this
works well. But it retains all the unused pixels in the file, which does
make it very large. The Word doc and .docx formats are compressed: RTF is
not, so you will feel the difference if you leave uncropped pictures in the
file.

If you insert lots of pictures in a non-native format such as JPG, Word will
make a copy in its native PNG format and save that along with the original.
If you are also running in .doc format, it will do this twice (four
copies...).

You could clean the file out by saving it as "Web Page" and check the option
to "Save only display information". Then, close and re-open the HTML
version, and save that to RTF. It will be a lot smaller.

Hope this helps

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

I have just upgraded to Word 2008 from 2004.

For some reason, when saving a Word 2008 doc to RTF, the RTF size turns out to
be enormous compared to when saved from Word 2004.

We're not talking about double the size or triple, but more like ten times -
enough to make it a real life problem.

I have to supply clients with RTF files to post on their websites, and
understandably their webmasters are telling me they don't want the RTFs Word
2008 is making as they're way too large for the content involved.

Is there a fix or workaround for this? Any insights appreciated... thanks!

--
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
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]