Martin's IT consultancy

Wednesday, August 31

Word: reducing file size for documents with inserted graphics

John reports he has a Word document in excess of 50MB which contains about 5 pictures and around 2 pages of text.

He needs to e-mail the document, but sending keeps failing because the document is so large.

Suggested fix is to copy the graphics out and use a picture editor such as Paint to save each as a JPEG, then send the files separately:
  1. Open Word and select one of the graphics. Copy it.
  2. Open Paint and Paste the graphic. (For Windows users, Paint is located on the menu at Start / Program Files / Accessories / Paint).
  3. Save the image in Paint as a JPEG file.
  4. Repeat the process for the remaining graphics.
  5. Save a new copy of the Word document with the pictures deleted from it.