How To Reduce The Size Of A Scanned Document

Word documents tin can get huge, unusually long, complex documents with loads of embedded images, fonts, and other objects. But information technology also seems like documents tin abound out of mitt for seemingly no reason at all. If y'all're dealing with a huge certificate, hither are some things you can try to reduce its file size.

When you've got a Word document that'due south a bit besides large, the commencement affair y'all'll try is compressing the images in information technology. This is partly because sites like How-To Geek take written comprehensive articles explaining how to do this, and partly because, well, images ever seem to bump upwards the size of a Give-and-take certificate across reason. You should even so go ahead and follow the tips we wrote in that article because if you lot've got images, they'll help you.

But if you haven't got images, or you've followed those tips and need to reduce the file size more, we've got you covered. We've got a lot of tips to share, so we've broken them down into things that will definitely help reduce the size of a Word certificate, things that might help, and some usually-suggested tips with which you shouldn't carp.

Let'southward become started.

Tips that Volition Definitely Assist Reduce a Document'south Size

Not every tip you find volition exist useful to y'all. Sometimes this is because they don't apply to your situation (if you've got no images then tips on compressing images won't be of use) merely sometimes the tips are just plain wrong. We've tested all of the tips in this department, so we know they work.

Convert Your Document to the DOCX Format

Microsoft released the DOCX format in Office 2007, so if yous're notwithstanding using .md format, it'due south time to catechumen. The newer .docx file type essentially acts as a Zilch file past compressing the contents of the document, so but converting a .medico file to the .docx format will make your certificate smaller. (This as well applies to other Part formats like Excel (.xls to .xslx), PowerPoint (.ppt to .pptx) and Visio (.vsd to .vsdx) by the style.)

To catechumen your .doc file, open it in Word and click File > Info > Convert.

Click "OK" on the prompt that appears, click the "Salvage" button, and Word converts your document to .docx. Word does this conversion by creating a brand-new version of the document in the new format, so y'all'll withal accept your old .doctor version bachelor.

We tested this with a sample twenty-page .doc file that independent six images, various tables, and formatting marks. The original .doc file was 6,001KB, but the converted .docx file only weighed in at 721KB. That'due south 12% of the original size. Goose egg else we advise below will do more than to reduce your file size, so if yous have .doctor files you can convert to .docx, your work might be done.

Insert Your Pictures Instead of Copying and Pasting Them

When you copy and paste an paradigm into your document, Discussion makes sure assumptions about how to deal with it. One of these assumptions is that you want the pasted image to be a BMP format, which is a large file type, or sometimes PNG, which is still quite large. A simple culling is to paste your image into an editing program instead, save it as a smaller format like JPG, and and so use Insert > Motion picture to insert the image into your document instead.

Pasting the minor screenshot below straight into an otherwise blank Word document made that certificate'due south size leap from 22 KB to 548 KB.

Pasting that screenshot into Paint, saving information technology as a JPG, and then inserting that JPG into a blank document caused the document to jump to only 331 KB. That's just over forty% smaller. Fifty-fifty improve, using the GIF format resulted in a certificate that was over 60% smaller. Scaled up, that's the divergence between a 10 MB certificate and 4 MB certificate.

Of form, you can't ever go away with this. Sometimes, you're going to need the meliorate paradigm quality that formats similar BMP and PNG can offer. Simply if information technology'south a small image or you don't demand super high quality, using a lighter weight format and inserting the motion picture can help.

While You lot're Saving Your Image, Do Your Editing

When you edit an paradigm in Word, it stores all of your image edits as function of the document. The ways if you ingather an epitome in your document, Word yet retains the full original image. Change an image to black and white, and Give-and-take still retains the original full-color image.

This increases the size of your document unnecessarily, and then when you've made changes to your images, and you're sure yous don't need to revert those images, you tin have Word discard the editing data.

Only better than removing unnecessary data from your document is non having that unnecessary information in your certificate in the first place. Any edits you can make, even simple ones similar cropping or adding an arrow, are best done in an image editor before y'all insert the image into the certificate.

Shrink All of Your Images in One Go

Yes, we said at the start that this article was nearly other ways to decrease your file size, but most articles on this subject tell you how to compress your images one at a time (including our article), and hither at How-To Geek we're all about finding better ways to do things.

Click File > Save As > More Options. (Yous may have "Save a Copy" rather than "Save As" if you lot've got OneDrive with AutoSave turned on.)

This opens the "Save Equally" dialog box, where y'all admission some boosted options. Click Tools > Compress Pictures.

This opens the "Shrink pictures" console, where you tin decide on what compression yous desire to apply to all of your images at once.

The "Employ merely to this moving-picture show" selection is grayed out because this is an all or nothing tool—either all of your images will have these options applied when yous relieve the document or none of them will. So if you want to cull different options for different images, this won't work for you. Only if you're looking to shrink all of your images in ane go, this is the option to apply.

Select your choices, click "OK," and then save the new version of your certificate with all of the images compressed.

Stop Embedding Fonts in Your Document

Unless you lot're using an unusual font from a galaxy far, far abroad, it'due south almost certain that anyone with whom you share your document will be able to read it using their copy of Word (or a free culling similar Libre Role). So why would you lot want to waste space in your file by embedding the fonts? Terminate this happening by going to File > Options > Save and turning off the "Embed fonts in the file" pick.

Y'all might call back that this wouldn't make much difference, but yous'd be incorrect. If you have font embedding turned on and have the "Exercise not embed common organization fonts" option turned off, the difference in file size is almost 2 MB. Even with "Practise not embed mutual organization fonts" turned on (which means fonts similar Calibri, Arial, Courier New, Times New Roman, so on aren't included), the file is still almost 1.3 MB bigger.

So yes, stop embedding fonts in your document.

RELATED: How to Set up the Default Font in Give-and-take

Terminate Embedding Other Files If You lot Can

We recently showed y'all how to embed or link an Excel spreadsheet in a Word document (and you can do this with other files, like PowerPoint presentations or Visio diagrams, as well). If you can link to the spreadsheet instead of embedding it, y'all'll save yourself near of the size of the Excel file. Y'all won't save all of it, because the linked spreadsheet will withal add some size, only your document will exist much smaller with a link than a total embed. Of course, there are drawbacks to linking as well as benefits, then exist sure to read that article to understand them earlier you lot practice this.

Terminate Storing a Thumbnail for the Document

Back in the day, Discussion let yous shop a thumbnail prototype of the document so that Windows could show y'all a preview in File Explorer. These days, File Explorer tin practice this on its own and doesn't need help from Word, merely the option is still there in your certificate. In our 721KB test document, turning this option on increased the file size to 3247 KB. That'due south 4.5 times the size of the original file—for aught. You'll notice this setting at File > Info > Properties > Advanced Properties.

Turn off the "Save thumbnails for all Word documents" checkbox and click "OK."

The name of this option is a bit misleading because turning it off here only affects the document yous've got open up, fifty-fifty though it says, "all Word documents." If this is turned on by default when you create a certificate, then you'll demand to turn it off in the Normal.dotx template and Microsoft has provided splendid instructions for doing this if you're not sure how.

You lot can also plow this setting off in the "Relieve As" dialogue, where information technology's chosen the slightly more correct "Save thumbnail."

Remove Personal and Hidden Data from Your Certificate

Not only is personal information adding to the size of your document, merely it's besides potentially giving your readers information you lot don't want them to take. There might besides be information that has been formatted as subconscious, and if you lot don't need this hidden text in the document, why not become rid of it?

Remove this unnecessary information from your document by heading to File > Info > Check for Issues and then clicking the "Inspect Document" button.

Brand sure "Document Properties and Personal Data" is switched on and then click "Inspect." When the Inspector has finished running, click "Remove All" in the "Document Properties and Personal Data" section.

This action reduced our test file size by 7 KB, so not a tremendous amount. However, it's skilful do to remove personal information from your files, so you should probably do this anyway. Be warned that you lot can't recover this data afterwards removing it, so make sure you lot're happy for it to go before yous remove it. You lot can practice the aforementioned matter for the "Invisible Content" and "Hidden Text" options, simply this volition only make your file smaller if you lot've got hidden content.

Turn off AutoRecover (If Y'all Dare)

One of Word'due south bang-up features—in fact, i of the great features of every Role app—is AutoRecover. This feature makes regular backups of your file as you work, and then if Word crashes or your estimator restarts unexpectedly (such as when Windows does a system update overnight), you lot'll be presented with automatically recovered versions of open documents the next time you beginning Word. Of form, all of these versions add to the size of your file, and so if y'all turn off AutoRecover, your file will be smaller.

Go to File > Options > Save and plough off the "Save AutoRecover information every [x minutes]" option.

This won't brand an firsthand divergence, but information technology will cease new AutoRecover versions existence added to the file as you piece of work on it.

But exist warned that you lot'll no longer have AutoRecover versions so if Word crashes or closes unexpectedly, you'll lose all of your work since the last time y'all saved it.

Copy Everything into a Brand-New Document

As you work on a document, Give-and-take saves various things in the background to assistance you. Nosotros've shown how to turn these off where possible, and how to delete the data that Discussion collects, simply there will likely still be things in your document y'all don't need. If you find yourself subject to this kind of document size creep, you can create a new certificate and then copy everything over to it.

Get-go by creating a new blank certificate. Select all of the content in your current document by pressing Ctrl+A. In the new document, press Ctrl+V to paste everything. This copies all your text, sections, formatting, page layout options, folio numbering—everything you need.

Your new document won't have whatever of the previous background saves, AutoRecover information, or previous versions, and this should reduce the file size.

Comport in mind doing this will copy over whatsoever editing data in your images, then you might want to remove that from the original document first before copying everything over to your new document. If you don't, it'south no big deal. You lot tin can still remove it from your new document.

We can't tell y'all how much this volition relieve, because it could be anything from a few kilobytes to a lot of megabytes, but it's always worth doing if you want to strip as much fat as possible from your document.

Every bit a bonus, we've also seen this copy/paste to a new document trick solve weird errors in Word documents that were hard to track down otherwise.

Tips that Might Help Reduce a Document's Size

Some tips seem like they would assistance, simply we couldn't get a positive result with them. We're not proverb they won't help reduce your file size, but it seems similar y'all'll need a particular set of circumstances to become any benefit from them. We highly recommend trying the tips from the previous section commencement, and then giving these a go if you need to.

Turn Off Groundwork Saves

The more complicated a document, and the longer it's been since yous saved it, the longer it can take to save when you click the "Save" push button. To help become effectually this, Word has a setting at File > Options > Advanced named "Allow background saves."

This setting is enabled by default and saves the document in the background as y'all're working on information technology. The idea is that when you click "Salvage," there will be fewer changes to save, and then information technology volition save a lot quicker. This is largely a throwback to the days when Discussion took up a proportionally larger amount of system resources, and on modern systems, it's probably non required, especially if you're not editing hugely long or complicated documents.

The jury is out on whether this makes a departure to file size. Leaving a certificate open up with this setting on didn't brand any deviation to the size of our test document (whereas leaving AutoRecover turned on did increase the file size). Making modifications over a flow of about 30 minutes also didn't crusade the document size to change appreciably, regardless of whether "Allow background saves" was on or off. Neither did having it turned off modify how quickly the document saved.

In curt: this one is up to you. If turning it off doesn't reduce your file size then go out information technology on, considering anything that Word does to save your documents automatically is a skillful thing.

Convert to RTF and so Convert Dorsum to DOCX

RTF stands for Rich Text Format, and information technology'southward an open standard for documents that provides a fleck more than formatting than plain text, but not all the bells and whistles of DOCX. The idea of converting a DOCX to RTF is that information technology strips away all of the extra formatting and whatever hidden data so that when you save your RTF dorsum as a DOCX file, the file size will exist smaller.

Converting our 20 page, 721 KB exam document to RTF turned the file size to xix.5 MB (then don't use RTF if you want a small file). Converting it back to DOCX resulted in a file that was 714 KB. That's a 7 KB saving—less than 1%—and because RTF couldn't handle some of the simple table formatting we used, we had to reformat….which brought the size support to 721 KB.

This one doesn't seem similar it will have many benefits to your document, especially when the mod DOCX has so many formatting capabilities that RTF can't handle.

Convert to HTML and Then Convert Dorsum to DOCX

This is the same thought as converting to RTF, except that HTML is a web format. Our conversion exam showed near identical results to using RTF.

We tried this on our 721 KB DOCX file, and it converted it to a 383 KB HTML file. Converting it back to DOCX resulted in a 714 KB file. That's a 1% saving, but information technology did mess with the formatting, peculiarly the headers, and these would have to be redone.

Unzip the Certificate and Compress It

A DOCX document is a compressed file, similar an archive you make with seven-Xip or WinRar. This means you can open it with one of those tools and see all of the contents. One tip you lot might see is to excerpt all the files from your DOCX, add together them to a compressed archive, so rename that archive to a DOCX file extension. Hey presto, you've got a Discussion document that'due south been compressed! In theory, this sounds plausible merely using both 7-Zip and WinRar and various archive formats we found that every fourth dimension nosotros tried to open the .docx file we'd created, Word told us that the file was corrupted.

There may be some merit in this thought—our 721 KB file did end up as only 72 KB—but we wouldn't recommend information technology unless you lot want to spend a lot of fourth dimension playing around with it to endeavor and get it working. Also, the saving might but be because the compression process has removed/compressed something that stops Discussion from opening the document, but we tin't be sure.

Unremarkably-Suggested Tips That Likely Won't Brand Any Divergence

There are a few suggestions floating around the cyberspace that sound sensible simply won't take much of an effect. That'due south not to say y'all shouldn't try them, just that you shouldn't look much touch on the size of your document.

Remove Previous Versions of the Document

Word keeps previous versions of your document every bit you piece of work on it. This is the AutoSave functionality, and some people suggest deleting these by going to File > Info > Manage Certificate and removing any old versions.

Withal, there's no signal doing this considering those erstwhile versions are stored in the Windows file organization, not in your Word document. Deleting them won't make your document any smaller. If you want to remove whatsoever previous version data from within the document, either re-create the content to a brand-new certificate or do a File > Salvage As to save to a new document, as we suggested previously.

Paste Text Only, Not the Formatting

When you want to copy and paste from one document into your current certificate, yous can use different paste options.

The default option used if you lot click the "Paste" button (or printing Ctrl+5) is "Go on Source Formatting." This copies non-default fonts and formatting like bold, italics, and so on. But if you click the "Keep Text Only" pick instead, this will—or so the theory goes—reduce the file size past removing the formatting.

We tried this with a twenty-page document that had various formatting applied to text on every folio, and the average size departure was just under 2 KB per page. This might be meaning if y'all've got a 250+ page document, where information technology would total up to around 0.5 MB, but are you really going to have a 250-page Give-and-take certificate with no formatting? Probably not, considering it would be mostly unreadable, then you'd lose your savings when yous add the formatting back in.

Any benefits to this method are probably downwards to the tip we gave above – copy and paste the whole document into a new document to remove previous versions, old editing changes, and so on.

Change the Size of the Page

Discussion gives y'all the selection to change the page size by going to Layout > Size and changing from the default "Letter" size. There are tips floating about that say if y'all choose a smaller, but similar size similar "A4" other readers won't notice, and you get a modest size saving.

Nosotros tried this with a twenty-page document using "Letter of the alphabet" size that was 721 KB. Nosotros changed the size to "A4," "A5," (which is one-half the size of "A4"), and "B5" and our certificate remained a steady 721 KB every time. In other words, information technology made no difference to the file size at all.

Finish Embedding Linguistic Data

At that place is a setting in File > Options > Avant-garde named "Embed linguistic data," and you'll see tips in diverse places telling you to turn this off. On the surface, this sounds reasonable—wouldn't extra linguistic data increase the size of a document?

In short, the answer is no if y'all're using a modern .docx file. Word handles the linguistic data behind the scenes, and it doesn't take upward any room in the document.

Turning this selection off tin make a slight departure to older .doc files, simply even then only if you lot've used a handwriting tool and Give-and-take has some "handwriting recognition correction information" to store. Otherwise, it makes no difference at all.

That's our adequately comprehensive list of means you can cut your Discussion files down to size, but we're always on the watch for new methods to try (or debunk). Fire abroad in the comments if y'all know a technique that nosotros've missed, and we'll check information technology out!