reduce MS Word file size

[richiwatts]

I have a document that I need to send to a colleague via e-mail. The problem is that the file has so many embedded pictures that the file is over 50mb.

Is there a way to change the embedded pictures into linked pictures so that I can just send the text in the file but maintain the documents format.

Once my colleague has finshed editing the word file and sent it back, I would need to have the pictures back in their places again.

Is there an easy solution for this or am I going to have to delete all the picture (over 80 of them) and then put them back in once I get the edited document back.

Would be gratefull for any suggestions. Thanks!

 

[Hasit]

Can't think of anything off the top of my head except:

1. Make sure the pictures are jpegs rather than bitmaps, as jpegs take up a lot less space.

2. You could compress the file using ZIP or some such, which would reduce the overall size of the file....

 

[richiwatts]

I received the file with the pictures already in so I can't change them.

I zipped the file but it only reduced the file size by 3mb

 

[xlhelp]

Make sure "Allow Fast Saves" is unchecked under Tools, Options, Save. Fast save increases file size since Word does a full save including all revisions.

Also make sure that "Embed Truetype fonts" is unchecked (again under Tools, Options, Save)

Also make sure that under File, Versions, "Automatically Save a Version on Close" is unchecked.

If you use too many fonts in your document, Word has to carry that info for each occurence of font change.

As Hasit has suggested, if the images are bitmaps, you can always edit them to convert them to Jpegs. A 1 MB bitmap file will quite often convert to less than 100 KB (not always, of course). Even if they arrived with the document, they still can be edited.

HTH

Indu

 

[larryww]

To answer your question, you could chop up your document and build files to link in. E.g., delete all but the first image, and save it as image1.jpg; substitute a link for the embedding; etc. . I do not know of a way to do this except by this manual process.

I can't tell for sure, but forgive me if I'm just restating what you described as the to-be-avoided-solution. Sorry that that's the best I could come up with, but at least I tried to answer the question that was asked.