Why does a WordPerfect document (Version 11) with a simple table, 400 words of text and four digital photos at an approximate 500K filesize for each one, bloat into a 75 megabyte monster document when saved?
This has been consistent behavior for Wordpefect documents for years and years now, and the latest versions still keep doing this. I never understood why it needed to do this. Still don’t. What the hell is all that extra space needed for?
They have no / poor compression in their graphics filters. A filter (internal or external) must be used to convert that image into something that WP can display. When saved, the code responsible for retaining that graphical information has to be called many times over to retain the fidelity of the graphic, and cannot be manipulated by source WP code into saving space.
As a correlary, programs like PowerPoint (to take a random example) use a compression ratio in the filter code when converting that file such that the filesize is extremely small. That way when saved it doesn’t balloon the filesize, although you will notice a slight increase. Word benefits from this shared code, otherwise it would have the same problems as WP.
Graphic intensive programs are even better at compression - Photoshop being the best IMO.
One other thing I just thought of - does WP have a “Fast Save” option? If so, try turning it on and resaving the file.
Well…you ever wondered where all your missing socks went?
I had a quick google about WordPerfect image formats (not that I know anything about WordPerfect, but bear with me). It looks like the images are translated internally into the WPG format which can contain bitmaps, vectors etc.
WPG format stores its bitmaps uncompressed and, if certain rumours are to be believed, sometimes in PostScript format which actually increases the filesize (PostScript has many wonderful features - bitmap storage isn’t one of them).
Still, 75Mb seems extreme. Is there any possibility there’s some kind of version tracking system turned on that is duplicating the storage of the images? Or maybe there’s an option somewhere to control the internal storage format.