Huge Word Document w/ Images... Need help resizing

[ashleygeney]

Noob here. And long post ahead. Please bear with me.

I have created a Word Document (saved as .doc, 94-2007) and File>Inserted images with a text box next to each image. There are about 4 images per page in this 40 page document--so that's about 160 images. The file size is 314 MB and is therefore impossible to edit without lagging and being extremely slow.

Here are the things I have tried to decrease the file size (as I assume the pictures are at fault for making it so large):

1. Saved the pictures from the Word Doc then opened in a photo editor to resize, but the photo editor is telling me the image size is small (roughly 200x300 pixels) and if I resize anymore, the image will be distorted.

With that, I save the edited image anyway, and the file size is 64KB. When I open up the original file it is 74MB. Now, why is the Word Doc so slow if in fact, the images are being resized automatically? They must somehow still be linked to the original file at 74MB.

2. I read online that .doc files tend to be larger than .docx files, so I did Save As and resaved the file as .docx, but the file size remained the same. How can that be?

I'm running out of options, and have googled this to no avail. Of course Word for Windows has a "Compress image" feature but this is not something Word for Mac has, since it "apparently" auto compresses the image when it is inserted.

Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated. I am getting very frustrated with the Word Doc and cannot get any other work done (i.e. inserting text) because it takes so long to process and scroll through.

Thank you,
Ashley

Edit: I am using a Macbook OS X 10.6.8, Word 2008

 

[chscag]

If the embedded images are *.JPG they're already compressed and will not compress further. That's would be the same in Windows as in OS X. Your document is going to be large either way because of all the images you embedded along with the included text boxes. It's like having a whole slew of small documents embedded into the one.

I don't know of a way to make that document smaller. However, you might want to ask the MS Mac Office experts to see if they know of a way. Here is the link to the Mac Office Word forum. I believe you'll have to register first but registration is free.

 

[RavingMac]

I am not an MS Word expert, but coming at this issue from a different direction, how much RAM and how much Hard Drive free-space do you have?

It's possible that you can reduce the lag by adding RAM (relatively cheap) or freeing up HD space (possibly no cost involved).

 

[ashleygeney]

Thanks for the replies.

I have 2GB of memory, and 113 GB of free space on my hard drive. The file is stored on a public server at work so is not taking up space on my own computer.

 

[RavingMac]

Thanks for the replies.

I have 2GB of memory, and 113 GB of free space on my hard drive. The file is stored on a public server at work so is not taking up space on my own computer.

If you work on it with your Mac (regardless of where the file is stored) your RAM and available free space will affect performance. 113 GB strikes me as plenty, but 2GB RAM is pretty small (especially in working with a large file). It may well be worth your while to add RAM if you are not already maxed out.

 

[ashleygeney]

I see--thank you for the suggestion.

 

[MinnieMouse9]

compress jpegs in Word

I'm new to MAC and find it so annoying that Word can't compress jpegs, which was so easy to do on my PC with Windows 10. The only way I've found around it is to make a DUPLICATE folder of the jpegs you want to compress. Then open the duplicates INDIVIDUALLY in Preview. You can adjust the size quite easily from there. Don't bother trying to rename them while still in Preview. It just doesn't work - or am I doing something wrong here? Save it (them) back to your DUPLICATE folder and rename them from there. Then copy (or cut/paste) the DUPLICATE folder back to wherever you need it. This works but it's very time consuming. I'd be delighted to hear if anyone has a better idea.

 

[chscag]

I'm new to MAC and find it so annoying that Word can't compress jpegs, which was so easy to do on my PC with Windows 10.

As noted in the above thread, JPEG graphic files are already compressed and can not be made smaller. And since there is no such version as Windows 10, I'm assuming you're referring to Office 2010 for Windows. Please explain to us how you compressed the JPEG graphics in Office 2010 for Windows?

 

[MinnieMouse9]

Maybe I'm not explaining the problem very well. I need to shrink jpegs from say 10MB so that they can be inserted in Word documents as thumbnails at about 50 or 60KB. When I had a PC with Office 2010 (sorry, my error saying it was Windows 2010) I started by reducing the jpeg size in Photoshop, and then inserted the reduced size image into a Word document. That version of Word isn't on my Mac, but from memory the process was go to INSERT menu; choose PHOTO FROM FILE; click on your jpeg. The jpeg is inserted into the document. Then a tab pops up with various options about what you can do with that image. One of those options is named COMPRESSION. If you are using 50 or 60 jpegs in a Word document and choose to ignore the COMPRESSION option, you will be working with a Word document the size of a dinosaur and about as easy to manage . If you use COMPRESSION on every jpeg in the document, the size will stay manageable.

 

[chscag]

OK, thanks for posting back and a clear explanation of what you were doing.

You can certainly shrink the size of JPEGs the same way if you have the Photoshop Mac version. However, you should also be able to do likewise by using the built in Preview application.

Here's how to do the same thing in Word 2011 that you were able to do in Word 2010:

1. Make sure you have the Word 2011 "Ribbon" turned on.

2. Click on the top menu "Insert" and then choose "Photo" "Picture from file" or use the "Photo Browser".

3. Once you've found the photo or JPEG image you wish to insert, click on it and it will be inserted to your document.

4. Now, click on the Ribbon selection "Format Picture". Right below "Format Picture" another set of options will appear. One of them is "Compress".

5. Select "Compress" and follow directions.

Let me know if that helps you out. It does require some work if you have a large document with many photos and JPEGs.

 

[MinnieMouse9]

Thanks very much for your response. I'll try that!