A Word document that is 80 MB for ten pages: finding and fixing what is inside
Images, embedded files and fonts make Word documents large. How to see exactly what is inside a .docx on a Mac, and compress it without retyping anything.
Ten pages of text should be a few hundred KB. When a Word document is 80 MB, something inside it is not text, and you can see exactly what.
Look inside
A .docx is a zip archive. List its contents, largest last, without changing it:
unzip -l Report.docx | sort -n | tail -10| Folder inside | What it is |
|---|---|
word/media/ | Pictures and screenshots |
word/embeddings/ | Spreadsheets or other files pasted in as objects |
word/fonts/ | Embedded fonts |
Compress the pictures
- Save a copy first.
- Click any picture, open Picture Format, and click Compress Pictures.
- Choose a resolution, tick Apply to all pictures in this file and Delete cropped areas of pictures.
- Save, and compare sizes.
Embedded objects and fonts
- An Excel sheet pasted as an object keeps the whole workbook inside the document. Paste as a picture or a table instead if nobody needs to edit it.
- Embedded fonts are turned on in Word, Settings, Save. Turning off Embed fonts in the file shrinks the document, but readers without the font see a substitute.
ls -lh Report.docx Report-small.docxPowerPoint works the same way: reduce PowerPoint file size. For images before they go in, see reduce image file size.
Common questions
Why is my Word document so large?
Usually pictures at full resolution, embedded spreadsheets, or embedded fonts. Run unzip -l on the .docx in Terminal to see which.
How do I compress images in Word on a Mac?
Select a picture, choose Picture Format, Compress Pictures, pick a resolution, apply it to all pictures and delete cropped areas.
Does embedding fonts make a Word file bigger?
Yes. Turning off Embed fonts in the file in Word's Save settings makes it smaller, but readers without the font see a substitute.