Word 2010 discard editing data not working

[Ravenant211]

Hello all,

I have a quick question that has me stumped on what to try next. I have a document I am creating with several screen prints pasted into the Word document. I have resized most of these to focus on particular areas of the screen making them much smaller. The file size has grown substantially since each image was cropped from a full screen copy.

I have used the advanced feature "discard editing data" and clicked OK... saved the document but it's not reducing the file size at all. Moreover I can select an image in my file and use the option "reset picture and size" from the picture tools menu and still retrieve the original image, even after closing and opening the document again.

Is there a step I'm missing? These images were previously existing in the document before I changed the setting to discard, but my understanding was that using this option would remove original data from all pictures that already exist in the document as well. I can't find any additional information on the internet abroad about this and wasn't able to turn up a search result on these forums about it either. I apologize if this has been previously discussed.

Any help or advice on what to try would be greatly appreciated. I have a rough draft my employer would like to see over the weekend for review and as it stands right now the file size it too large to email. Thanks for your time and assistance with this!