E-mailing large Word 2000 files

[JayE]

Hi everyone,

One of my colleague regularly e-mails Word 2000 files to prospective clients, middle to large sized companies.

They used to be quite small, containing mainly text with coloured headings, bullet points, etc.

Now they contain photos, the file sizes can be quite large, usually over 1MB and even up to 2MB at times.

I believe they take some time to send and must take a while for the receiving network to download.

What's the easiest way to reduce the file size to a more manageable figure? I know it could be zipped, but this relies on the recipient having ZIP or similar to extract. I am seriously considering a PDF file creator, as I understand the file sizes are very small. I know Adobe Acrobat 5.0 but this is - I think - about £150, which I don't think I can justify. Are there cheaper ones that create PDF files for e-maliing? I've seen one called 5D PDF Creator (Niknak), is is any good?

Can you tell me more about PDF files - does the conversion from Word doc to PDF lose any formatting/features as far as the recipient is concerned when he/she views on screen and/or prints?

I value your advice.

Regards,
Jay/UK

 

[Knoxville]

As far as I know, PDF loses none of the formatting or features of the original document.

However, from my experience, the PDF is only as small as it's source file e.g. if your Word document id 2MB then so will your PDF file. You can use the 'Distiller' which strips some of the extraneous stuff out, but I'm not sure to what extent it works.

I only say this because at our work we asked a design company to convert one of our printed publications to PDF - they did exactly that and used the same images they used in print - as a result the PDFs were still like 250MB, which is OK for print, but not exactly what you want for downloads right?

PDFs are really just to ensure that anyone, using any computer can read your document i.e they only need Acrobat Reader not MS Word/Lotus Wordpro etc - So from a customer service point of view it might be worth buying.

My advice (such as it is)would be to Zip them as you originally thought, true not everyone has got WinZip, but you would expect someone in a medium to large enterprise to have it! Also downloading a 1MB or even 2MB file in an office usually doesn't take that long, as they tend to have faster connections than you or I may have at home.

You could get your newsletter on a web page, so your businesses can access it whenever they like and your colleaugue only has to send an e-mail saying it's been updated.

Failing all that, just ask them to leave the damn photos out!

Sorry I waffled on so long and I hope I haven't fed you any mis-information.

Knoxville

 

[AngO]

Jay,
You can create self extracting zip files also. Then the recipient doesn't have to have win zip to open it.
AngO

 

[JayE]

Hi AngO,

If you create self-extracting ZIP files, don't they have an EXE extension? Receiving an EXE attachment may cause problems for recipients as they may arouse suspicion or the latest version of Outlook, I believe, doesn't even allow you to open attached EXEs.

Kind Regards,
Jay/UK

 

[JayE]

Hi Knoxville,

Thank you for your comments.

I was surprised, because I thought PDF file sizes were smaller, often considerably smaller, than the original document size.

I find it surprising that you feel everybody in a medium to large sized company should have Winzip. Since Winzip and similar products are paid-for software, I would be very surprised if a company chose to purchase and install a copy of each individual PC, especially if there were many users. I would expect 1 or 2 individuals would have the software (as in my company where it's installed on the server), but then the recipient would have to approach them to de-ZIP it - not very convenient.

Your further comments would be appreciated.

Kind Regards,
Jay

 

[Knoxville]

Hi JayE

I think the really small PDFs just contain very low resolution images etc - I'm not sure to what extent files are compressed. I really am not an expert on PDF or Acrobat distiller. I'd check out

http://www.adobe.co.uk

for the full details.


Just from my own experience, WinZip crops up on more PCs than you'd expect, evaluation editions or otherwise.

I'd seriously think about the webpage solution though, it would be much more accessible.

Cheers

Knoxville

 

[ronhatcher]

In my experience with similar docs, the PDFs are much smaller than the original Word docs.

An easy way to reduce file size (if you're not doing this already) is to click File | Save As, instead of File | Save. You don't need to rename the file, but this option gets rid of a lot junk in the document and often reduces the file size considerably.

 

[AngO]

Jay
You are correct about the exe files. However, Outlook XP will allow you to open them, you need to change some settings.

Another options is as ronhatcher suggested, the easier way to accomplish that is to go to tools, options, save. remove the checkmark from allow fast saves. It takes a little longer, but actually rewrites the file, taking less space.
Good Luck,
AngO