File Size Shrinks When Breaking Links? (W2000 SR-1)

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No big problem here, just something I’m curious about.

I’ve got some documents with linked Visio graphics. I broke the links to hard-code the graphics in the document and make it easier for some off-line users to work with the documents. To my surprise, the Word file size significantly decreased. I tried this on several files and I came up with the same result. Not complaining–just curious to know why this happened. Does the LINK field command carry a lot of overhead with it?

Thanks,
Bob

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You embedded the graphics and the file size decreased? It’s supposed to work the other way around…

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A picture can be very efficient compared with an embedded drawing, but it doesn’t seem possible that it would be slimmer than a mere link. Maybe the “link” contained a preview image or something that took up more space?

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Hi, Bob! This has been consistent with my experience going all the way back to Word 7 (95) and I have long advised people that unless there’s a compelling reason to link, don’t. Also, by embedding the graphic there’s less automation to break, hence less chance of corruption. I had one file that went from over 4MB to 280K just by going through and cutting all the graphics and going to Edit / Paste Special and pasting it as a Picture. Go figure.

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Hi Karen:
Is it possible that the filesize went down because the original graphic was both linked & embedded? I had the same impression about filesize that Kevin did.

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I’m not sure. In the attached zip, I have placed 2 files. in Snipit.doc, I pasted the “snipit.gif” as a picture file (once pasting special as picture and once pasting in it’s standard gif format). In Snipit2.doc, I deleted the first of the two pictures and used Insert / Object, create from file tab, marked link to file and put the path of the gif in. If you check the size of both files, Snipit.doc is 24K and Snipit2.doc is 84K. If you do Alt+F9 on Snipit2.doc, you’ll see the “Linked” code — not the Embedded.

Edited to add — (Zip file edited to add file) Snipit3.doc has it embedded, not linked — it’s 48K

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(Edited by Nancy Potter on 20-Jan-03 15:57. )

I’ve had files with links to Powerpoint (someone copied a slide in and didn’t realize they had copied as an embedded, editable slide. I had another document that had 2 slides copied as slides. In both cases, the file sizes decreased by 15mB (one slide vs two slides) when they were recopied as pictures. I figured from this experience that when you link or embed graphics that you can click on and get the program, it must bring part of the program into your document. Is this the case?

Nancy Potter

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This might help explain things:

My original Visio drawings were linked and embedded. When I broke the link, the Visio graphics turned into WordArt graphics.

Bob

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Hi Karen:
Well, I’m confused (but I’m getting used to that feeling). I looked at your zipped files. However, even though the linked graphic says it’s a link, I would think that it must be embeded also. Otherwise, how would I be able to see the graphic?

Also, I selected the first file (the one that had a link field) & unlinked the file (Ctrl+Shift+F9). I could still see the picture & the filesize shrunk to 23KB. So I think that Word must link & embed the graphic. Nevertheless, just cutting the link did cut down the filesize. I’ll have to read up on this (another thing to add to my To Do list).

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Ambiguous language detected? From Microsoft? Never! The apps we love to hate… or hate to love????

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This is consistent with Word storing the entire Visio file and only pasting in a small chunk of it. This means that if you double click the graphic in Word then the file will magically open so you can edit it.

This is serious gotcha in bringing snippets of Excel files into Word as an Excel object. Even though you paste in only a small table or graph – the entire file is there for someone to read if they double click the graphic to edit it.

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