[BoniM]

It's reducing the ppi to only as high as it needs to be for the desired task.
Usually, the reason there is such a big change is not just because of the
change in ppi, but because it also resizes to the actual size in use in the
document. When you insert a huge picture into Word, it will automatically be
resized to fit between the margins and many users resize even smaller.
Click compress pictures and then the options button to control the level of
compression and choose whether you want cropped areas permanently removed or
not.

"John" wrote:

Problem: What is compress actually doing?



Word 2007

XP Pro SP2



If you compress the images in a DOC file using Format Pictures... | Picture tab | Compress button, the following happens:

The file becomes smaller.

The printed page looks the same.

The screen image looks the same.



What actually changed?

Is it the Resolution in DPI?

Is it the Dimension in Pixels?



Changing the Resolution in DPI should only change the physical size of how something prints. It does not change the number of pixels in the image itself.



Changing the Dimension in Pixels would cut off part of the image, or

it could do an algorithmic shrink where there are less Dimension in Pixels so you see the same image but using fewer Dimension in Pixels. I appreciate your feedback