A colleague just sent me an .rtf weighing in at 9Mb for three A4 pages and three screenshots.
Just out of curiosity, I removed the three graphics – size of .rtf without graphics, 34kb
I saved the three graphics as external .png files – total size, 114kb
To complete the experiment, I then put the graphics back into the document with insert + link …

34kb (text) + 114kb (graphics) = 4,289kb (rtf)



Now, I realise (and have checked) that .docx does a better job; but this document was an extract from another system that only delivers .rtf – and I'm mildly curious to know what's behind the inflation.

A 1366*768 24-bit screenshot could account for 6MB of data; 3 of them could account for 18MB of data. Depending on the file format the screenshots were saved in, therefore, the worst-case scenario could have been an 18MB+file...

Saving the images in PNG format may have compressed the images far more than their original format provided.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]