Thread: Compressing a Word File

First off if you haven't done so: compress the images in the document. It sounds like you may have found this and done it given the file size differences.

Second thing that is left to you is to try zipping the file (Winzip, WinRAR etc are suitable apps, there are lots of free ones available). Depending on the amount of images and text will determine the ability to compress it further in this manner. As the images are already compressed in the document, they won't shrink any further but the textual parts all will.

The other option would be to split the file into 2 parts.

Make sure 'allow fast saves' is not checked (Tools -> Options -> Save -> allow fast saves).

When this option is selected word does remove any edits you have made. It just hides them from view. So as you create your document it just gets larger and larger even though you appear to be just rearranging content.

If this option has been checked then when you uncheck it, save and close the document. The invisible edits will be purged. Your file should now be smaller.

Just how much smaller will depend on how much old junk was contained in it.

Having said that, if you have pictures in a word document then 1.5Mb is not that big.

Install something like CutePDF then save the file as a PDF. The resulting file will be a lot smaller, and this site will let you upload larger PDFs as attachments than Word files.

195.3 KB vs 976.6 KB

Or just zip it, you can upload 10mb zips/rars.

May not be applicable - but you may want to download Open Office - its file sizes when saved as Open Document format are typically about a tenth the size of Word files - it also has the ability to save as PDF files without extra software or messing about.

John

As said above, word keeps saving the edits in the file. Save it as a new name and see if it is smaller.

Yup, PDF it and set it to screen resolution and it will shrink a lot!!