Word Document - 17 MB and Growing

[Hutch]

Hi

Have a weird issue that is cropping up with a sensitive document. We are
running Windows XP with SP2, and Office 2003 with SP2.

Document in question was created in Word 2003, and currently sits at 31
pages. It is mainly text, and does not have a huge amount of graphics.
Because it is a working document however, there have been many revisions,
updates, etc made to it.

What appears to be happening is that everytime it is saved, it gets
bigger...regardless of changes. It finally gets to the point where it can
take 20 to 50 seconds, just to open, due to the size on disk.

At this point, we have to copy all the date, and place into a new word
document. What is interesting is to compare the size. When I performed this
procedure today, it dropped from 17MB to 204KB.....so I am at a loss as to
why it appears so big, when it really isn't.

The formatting on the document also goes weird. For instance, if you
bulletpoint a sentence, it will bulletpoint the entire document, even though
that was not selected.

Any ideas on this one?? I am stumped.

Thanks,

 

[Terry Farrell]

Open a COPY of the document in Word 2003. Use SaveAs and choose XML format.
Close the xml document and then open it again. Now use SaveAs and chose DOC
format. That should remove the corruption.

 

[Hutch]

Ok...I will give that a shot tomorrow. Any idea though what is happening??
I have never seen a document do this before.

 

[Terry Farrell]

Well it sounds like a strange corruption. If you cannot see the corruption,
it is with the file structure, so round-tripping to XML should sort it out
again.

Terry

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

There are a number of reasons for excessive file size, including:

1. Fast Saves: Disable this at on the Save tab of Tools | Options.

2. Preview Picture: Clear the check box on the Summary tab of File |
Properties.

3. Versions (File | Versions): Make sure "Automatically save version on
close" is not turned on.

4. Revisions (Tools | Track Changes):
Highlight Changes: Make sure "Highlight changes on screen" is turned on
(or that "Final Showing Markup" is displayed).
Accept/Reject Changes: If "Accept All" or "Reject All" is available then
revisions are present; accept or reject all changes, then turn Track Changes
off.

5. Keep track of formatting (Tools | Options | Edit). This is reportedly a
major cause of file bloat in Word 2002 and above.

6. Embedded True Type fonts (Tools | Options | Save); embedding fonts should
be avoided wherever possible.

7. Embedded linguistic data (Tools | Options | Save).

8. Embedded graphics: When feasible, it is preferable to link the graphics.
That is, when you insert the graphic, click the arrow beside Insert in the
Picture dialog and choose Link to File rather than Insert or Insert and
Link.

9. Embedded objects: These are even worse than ordinary graphics saved with
the document. If you see an { EMBED } code when you press Alt+F9, the
graphic is an OLE object. Unless you need to be able to edit the object in
place, unlink it using Ctrl+Shift+F9.

10. File format: Make sure you are saving as a Word document; in some cases
..rtf (Rich Text Format) files are significantly larger than .doc files.

11. Document corruption: See
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm.

Terry's suggestion addresses #11, but the others are worth exploring.