Question : Word file size growth with JPG photo

When I use "INSERT" "PICTURE" to insert a JPG photo into a word document the size of the word file grows about 10 times the size of the JPG photo.  Is there a way to insert a photo into a word document while limiting the size of the new word document file to the sum of the photo file plus the original word document file?

Answer : Word file size growth with JPG photo

What you should try to do is resize the photo to the actual size you need in Word (if you have a picture editing program that is...), also keep the resolution of the photo to around 150 pixels per inch - this is more than high enough resolution for the average ink jet printer.   This will help reduce the size of the file to start with.

Then the next trick is to do the following after you have inserted the picture using Insert-Picture...
Cut the picture (Ctrl-X) and then do a Paste - Special - as Picture (JPEG).  (This option will give you the best compression).

This will drastically reduce your file sizes - I have taken a 5MB file (with lots of pictues) down to under 500KB using this technique.

All I can assume is that when inserting a picture, Word save the raw data of the picture which would be quite bulky but by cutting and pasting using the compression of JPEG you remove all the extra data and are left with the true compressed image data.

Obviously, if you picture is very large to begin with you may not be able to reduce it as much as you want, that's why I suggest sizing the picture to approximately the size you want it to be - err a little on the larger size if you're not sure as reducing the size in Word slightly won't affect the quality but trying to enlarge the picture in Word definitely will.

Hope this helps,
Andrew