Hi J.R.,

Office XP (Word 2002) [that you're using] had the
the first implementation of the Compress Picture feature
(developed basically for Powerpoint). The Office 2003 (Word 2003)
one works a bit better, but the feature is not always what folks think it is
(or should be).

How well it works will depend on the graphic content, it's
format/type and some other Word internal settings. What the feature
searches for is a large area of 'same color' if it finds it it
can, rather than store each pixel, use VML (Virtual Markup Language)
internally to save a start and ending point for that color and
reduce the size of the document.

Keep in mind that Word on its own doesn't do too bad of a job on
compressing graphics (again depends on the graphic format and the
graphic content).

To illustrate - this image is 800 pixels by 800 pixels
http://aac.sunrise.it/eclissi/terra_...00-800x800.jpg
A. Save it to your hard drive and note the file size.

B. Next, start a blank Word document and in Tools=Options=General
Web Options set the Pixel Per Inch resolution for Pictures to 300.

C. Now use Insert=Picture from File to put the saved picture into Word,
then save the document and note the file size that includes the
graphic and compare that to the graphic on its own.

D. Now, use the Compress picture feature and select the (o)Print 200 ppi
setting and use File=Save as to save the document to a new file name.

E. Now use the Compress picture feature and select 96PPI and save to
another new file name and compare the file sizes.

Okay, now using the same graphic start with Step B but set the PPI
value to 72 and repeat each step creating new files each time.

Note that when you start with 72PPI that Word can't "compress"
to a 96PPI or 200PPI value as it's already working with 'less'
as far as the settings go.

==========
"jrsyangl" wrote in message ...
Thanks for the suggestion. Irfanview looks interesting. I've downloaded it
and will give it a try. However, I already have other options for reducing
the file size of individual pictures. Moreover, reducing the size of my
document would entail making duplicate low resolution copies of all my
pictures and then replacing each of the orginal pictures in the document with
the low resolution version. I was hoping the compress feature of Word would
eliminate the need to do that. Are you saying that the compress just doesn't
work at all?
--
Let us know if this helped you,

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

For Everyday MS Office tips to "use right away" -
http://microsoft.com/events/series/a...andtricks.mspx