How to Shrink Down Word Files Ten-fold
For those of you who paste a lot of graphics files into your Word XP (Word 2002) documents, have you ever noticed how big those Word document files get? We work with a lot of Word docs containing tons of graphics and they get really big. Here’s a tip that will shrink those Word docs down ten-fold! (thanks to Ronald Beekalar for this great tip):
1. Open the Word document and save it with a different name (this is so that you have the original copy of the document just in case something goes haywire).
2. With the Word document open, click the Edit menu and then click Select All.
3. Now that the entire document is selected, Hold down the CTRL key. With the CTRL key held down, hold down the SHIFT key. With the SHIFT key and the CTRL key held down, press the F9 key (this is the CTRL+SHIFT+F9 keyboard combination).
4. Save the document. Compare the size of the new document with the size of the old one. We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
Ripped from WinXPnews
Hi,
I’ve been googling for a method of shrinking Word 2000 documents with lots of graphics in. Your tip doesn’t seem to work for Word 2000, have you got any other suggestions?
(I already know about turning off fast saves and linking graphics instead of embedding them.)
Cheers,
Alex
Hey it does not work for latest microsoft word. The proper way is to click on the menue Format and then select the last menue formate picture. Then select on the tool bar Compress images and select the option for webscreen and press ok and save. You will be amazed how small the documents gets
It worked !
shrunk the word doc 841 mb to around 500mb.
i was then able to convert to pdf ! no more insufficient memory or disk…error !
thanks
DANGER – don’t use Control-Shift-F9!! In Word 2003 it’s the shortcut to UNLINK all your fields. It breaks all your reference fields and breaks your table of contents!!!! This is VERY BAD ADVICE!
Fred, thank you for the notice about Word 2003.
But this tip is for Word XP.
Holy crap this is nuts! I wonder if this can be used with office 07…
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Interesting advice and interesting comments. I will try it at work because the idiots there keep on spamming my inbox with needless 5 mb files. If it works, this tip is golden!
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how do I reset my font after using Ctrl&Shift&F9
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Hey Asim,
the compress picture worked like charm. I am using MS Office 2007 and it works.
The best way to keep a Word doc small is to only insert photos as a jpeg. Never copy and paste a photo directly into Word. Use an image editor to crop and reduce the image size to 1200W x ????H pixels or less. Save the image as a jpeg and then use “Insert” > “Picture” > “From File”. I used this technique on a file with 10 pictures and it went from 20.8Mb to 1.12Mb.
I’ve found that just resaving the file with a different name is often enough to shrink the size in office 2003.
My file went from 1.15 MB to 112 KB I compressed it to “email” size to reach the size I needed. I had to recolor the picture to get the image clear enough to easly read.
If a word document consists of text and pictures/photo?s/images and your document becomes too large
Select a picture or a group of pictures with their text, do not select the normal text of the document
Click on compress picture icon on picture toolbar
.all pictures in document
.print
.delete cropped areas of picture
Never copy and paste a picture/image into a large word document. Allways insert from a file. It keeps your document smaller (less megabytes)
Elize
😎
word 2000 and beyond..click on first image in document..then click on format in the top menu..then click on compress pictures (top left in the adjust menu)..either tick apply setting to all pictures or just one of them…select the method of compression…..et viola
awesome post worked great
This is the best advice. My document was HUGE! even though I didn't have any pictures. I selected everything and then clicked compress pictures from the picture toolbar. My doc went from 1.5 meg to 290k! Apparently there are invisible pictures I'm not seeing, but at least the document is small now. Thanks!
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.
I'm glad I could help. I know the newer versions of office 2007 and
2010 do a much better job of compressing files when they are saved in
the new file formats.
Wow, this really helped me reduce the word file size greatly. Thank you.
Try PocoDoc! http://www.pocodoc.com
Thanks for a link, looks like a useful service
Asims advice worked for me.I use Word 2007.
Glad, you found this post and its comments useful.
Wow – from 20mb down to 520kb. Thank you!
Glad the tip helped!