Word 2010 reducing memory storage when inserting graphics

Was the same image used in all cases?  If so, how were the different formats created?

Doug

I used the same image based on a Photoshop .PSD image and saved it as .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .png, and .tif.  The size of these files is shown in Column 2 (Orig Size [KB]). Selecting the properties of each type of file in my Image Folder revealed the Original Size for each filetype.  The next two columns Insert Size in KB and Insert w/Compress in KB show the file size of the document after an image was dropped into it using the Insert option on the Word Insert Dialog box.  There is no difference between row values for Insert Size in KB and Insert w/Compress in KB, even though the Compress Pictures on the Word Format menue was used in conjunction with Insert option.  Notice the 4th column values are the same as the 3rd column values

Finally, the 5th column shows the file size of the document when the Link to File option choice on the the Insert Dialog box was used.  Refering to .png file size, the file size was about 2.2 % smaller than the original filesize of the .png image in my image folder on my hard drive.

From this I concluded: To save memory and avoid creating Word documents that are slow to execute, store images in a separate file on a hard drive and then use the Link to File option to view the images in the Word document. 

Les

A few observations:

• You aren't "saving memory". For a given picture format, the size of a document in memory is the same whether the picture is inserted or linked. The difference is only in the size of the document's file on disk -- because the link itself is only the few characters in the link field, and you aren't storing both the original picture file and copy of it in the document file.
• Unless you have timing data to add to your size data that shows the opposite, I doubt that a document full of links to picture files is any faster to load than the same document with the pictures embedded in it. Even if it is faster, I doubt that the difference is more than a few seconds.
• With the large size and low price of hard drives now, saving a few hundred KB -- or even a few hundred MB -- isn't worth bothering. Even low-end laptops these days have 500 GB drives.
• If you plan to share your documents with other people, or to store them on a CD or DVD, then Word's bad habit of converting all relative links to absolute links that don't work will drive you crazy. There is a solution (http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/154379-Word-Fields-and-Relative-Paths-to-External-Files) but it's tedious.

Thanks again Jay!

I've noticed when one of my long Word documents includes many embeded images it becomes difficult to work with.  The document becomes slow and there may be as much as a several-second-delay when it is saved.  Your help previously regarding an updating an index issue improved things greatly. I'm going to look at the link you provided.  Thank you for the "heads up" on this issue—I can now see the downside to using the Link to File method I described.

Les

Les, here's an additional thought: If linking pictures helps to make editing the document easier, you can keep the links until you're ready to distribute the document. Then make a copy of the document and break the links in the copy and save, which will embed the pictures in the copy. You can distribute that without worrying about relative vs. absolute links.

To break the links, you can go to File > Info and click the "Edit Links to Files" item at the bottom of the right-hand column. In the dialog that opens, select all the files in the list (by clicking the first and Shift-clicking the last), and click the Break Link button.

Jay,

I like the IncludePicture method the best (see Quick Parts Include Picture Field Graphics Method below).  The File>Options>Advanced>Show document content, Doug suggested, is helpful when editing a long document that has embeded graphics.  Thank you both for your help!

File Size

“The file size of an image is the digital size of the image file, measured in kilobytes (kB), megabytes (MB), or gigabytes (GB). File size is proportional to the pixel dimensions of the image. Images with more pixels may produce more detail at a given printed size, but they require more disk space to store and may be slower to edit and print. Image resolution thus becomes a compromise between image quality (capturing all the data you need) and file size.

Another factor that affects file size is file format. Because of the varying compression methods used by GIF, JPEG, PNG, and TIFF file formats, file sizes can vary considerably for the same pixel dimensions. Similarly, color bit-depth and the number of layers and channels in an image affect file size” (Adobe Systems Incorporated 2014).

Although the Graphic Interchane Format (.gif) was used for the two identical images (placed in one document) that were compared using different Situation and Graphic Methods (see Table 2), I prefer the Portable Network Graphics format because I find it is easier to use.

Table 1: File Size of Different File Formats

Table 2: Situation and Graphic Methods

Quick Parts Include Picture Field Graphics Method

1. Open Word (.docx) document
2. Insert » Quick Parts » Field… » IncludePicture  
   • Select the Filename or URL: box in the Field properties section.
   • Open image file
   • Right-click on the Title Bar and select Copy address as text—this is the location of the image folder
   • Paste the location image folder into the Filename or URL box (Ctrl-v) and add a left-backslash ( \ ) to the end of the address
   • Right-click on an image in the image folder, choose properties, highlight the file name (top of dialog with the General tab selected).
   • Press Ctrl-c and paste this part of the path into the Filename or URL: box after the left-backslash
   • Click OK

The image appears in the Word document.  Select the image and press Alt-F9.  Something resembling the following should show up on your screen:

Repeat Steps 1 and 2 for all images that will be used in the document.  Something resembling the following example should show up:

Change Image Path when Document and Image File Moved to New Location

1. Create new Briefcase on Desktop
2. Copy Document and Image File and paste them in Briefcase
3. Move or Copy Briefcase to Jump Drive—Document and Image file should be visible on any computer that Jump Drive is plugged into.  Compare the following with field codes shown in Step 4 above:

Although these paths are not identical to the paths you would get if you drop a new path based on the document and image files in the Briefcase, these links seem to work fine when Jump Drive is used on a different computer.

Break Links

1. Open Word (.docx) document
2. File » Info » Edit Links to Files » Select all images » Break Link
3. Are you sure you want to break the selected links?  Click Yes
4. Click the Home tab in the menu, select an image.
   • Pressing Alt-F9 produces no field codes because images are not imbedded in document.

 Works Cited

Adobe Systems Incorporated. "Image size and resolution." Photoshop Help. 2014. http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/image-size-resolution.html#file_size (accessed Dec. 22, 2014).

Thanks for your help Doug,

I posted some information as a reply to Jay on this same thread.

Les