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  #1  
Old 06-28-2022, 11:35 PM
kwaboems kwaboems is offline File size increases substantially after grouping two pictures Windows 10 File size increases substantially after grouping two pictures Office 2019
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Default File size increases substantially after grouping two pictures


I encounter the following issue. Within a Word document, some 4MB in size, I have two pictures of very similar structure, each approximately 1MB in size. Yet, if I group these two pictures, the total file size increases by an extra 5MB. I have even extracted the two pictures into a new document: add one: file size of 1MB; add the other: file size of 2MB. Group the two pictures and save the file: 7MB.

Is this a strange instance of non-Euclidean arithmetic whereby 1+1=7?
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Old 06-29-2022, 10:48 AM
Charles Kenyon Charles Kenyon is offline File size increases substantially after grouping two pictures Windows 11 File size increases substantially after grouping two pictures Office 2021
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It is not 1 + 1. It is 1 + 1 + a set/enclosure structure.
If you form two groups of 2 images, I do not expect a similar increase.

What happens if you add a drawing canvas into the mix?

Why is this of concern given that with most file structures there is no difference in storing a 2 Mb or a 5 Mb file? (Or is my understanding of file structures flawed? I haven't looked at this since the development of terabyte drives.)
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Old 06-29-2022, 10:50 PM
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Guessed Guessed is offline File size increases substantially after grouping two pictures Windows 10 File size increases substantially after grouping two pictures Office 2016
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In my experience, any time you make a change to a bitmap image in Word, the stored file format changes to BMP which is a very inefficient way to store this information. Doing other image manipulations such as changing contrast can also trigger the format change.

If your two graphics were both BMP to start with I would expect little change in file size by grouping them. But if one (or both) was JPG/PNG/compressed TIFF then converting to BMP will require a lot more disk space.

WARNING: Maybe this isn't correct - see other posts below because actually testing reveals other things going on with grouped graphics.
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Last edited by Guessed; 06-30-2022 at 04:49 PM.
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Old 06-30-2022, 09:20 AM
kwaboems kwaboems is offline File size increases substantially after grouping two pictures Windows 10 File size increases substantially after grouping two pictures Office 2019
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Default caused by conversion to bmp (?)

This sounds like a very plausible explanation of what I observe.

Is there any way to check for sure? How can I ask for an image that is already embedded in Word on which format it is held in?
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Old 06-30-2022, 10:45 AM
Charles Kenyon Charles Kenyon is offline File size increases substantially after grouping two pictures Windows 11 File size increases substantially after grouping two pictures Office 2021
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kwaboems View Post
This sounds like a very plausible explanation of what I observe.

Is there any way to check for sure? How can I ask for an image that is already embedded in Word on which format it is held in?

Save it as a web page. a separate folder will be created with the images.
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Old 06-30-2022, 04:42 PM
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Saving as a web page won't do it - the graphics would have to be converted to something a browser could show and BMP isn't supported.

To see the graphics in their native state you will need to open the docx file with a Zip editor and go into the word/media folder. This will reveal each graphics's format.

I just did a test and discovered that after grouping a gif and png together, my media folder now contains a second version of both those graphics (so Word is storing them twice) but they are still in their native formats. If I then applied a graphic effect to the images, the GIFs were converted to PNG format and I also got another graphic added in WDP format. When I include a JPG in the mix, I end up with two of those too but one is JPEG format. I didn't test compressed TIF or other graphic formats.

So the suggestions I gave above on BMP conversion don't appear correct via my testing but versions of Word and different graphic formats may behave differently. Maybe the file size increases you are seeing are due to the doubling up of your graphics like I am seeing although your 1+1=7 doesn't align with this thinking either.

Do you know how to examine the file with a zip editor?
- The easiest way is using 7zip because with that tool installed you can then right click on the file and choose 7zip>Open Archive.
- Otherwise, rename the file and change the file extension to .zip instead of .docx and then double click it.
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Old 06-30-2022, 11:28 PM
kwaboems kwaboems is offline File size increases substantially after grouping two pictures Windows 10 File size increases substantially after grouping two pictures Office 2019
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Guessed View Post
Saving as a web page won't do it - the graphics would have to be converted to something a browser could show and BMP isn't supported.

To see the graphics in their native state you will need to open the docx file with a Zip editor and go into the word/media folder. This will reveal each graphics's format.

I just did a test and discovered that after grouping a gif and png together, my media folder now contains a second version of both those graphics (so Word is storing them twice) but they are still in their native formats. If I then applied a graphic effect to the images, the GIFs were converted to PNG format and I also got another graphic added in WDP format. When I include a JPG in the mix, I end up with two of those too but one is JPEG format. I didn't test compressed TIF or other graphic formats.

So the suggestions I gave above on BMP conversion don't appear correct via my testing but versions of Word and different graphic formats may behave differently. Maybe the file size increases you are seeing are due to the doubling up of your graphics like I am seeing although your 1+1=7 doesn't align with this thinking either.

Do you know how to examine the file with a zip editor?
- The easiest way is using 7zip because with that tool installed you can then right click on the file and choose 7zip>Open Archive.
- Otherwise, rename the file and change the file extension to .zip instead of .docx and then double click it.

Very useful hints, thank you. In my case, I start with a file containing two BMP images of 1.1 and 1.2MB, plus some 0.1MB for text, styles etc. When grouping these two images, I get an XML file (called "document") of 3.3MB (but compressed to 2.4MB) plus TWICE the BMP files of (1.1+1.2). Now the arithmetic seems to add up: 2.4+2*(1.1+1.2)=7.0. I now assume that the "document" itself consists of 1.1+1.2+0.1, by which we have triple storage of the images. This explains the math: (3*)(1.1+1.2)=7.
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