Quick reference
A Word file weighing megabytes? Look at the pictures inside it
A DOCX only looks like a single file. Inside it is an ordinary archive: the text markup sits in XML and everything you pasted sits in a separate folder of images.
- What is inside
- a ZIP archive: XML and a media folder
- Where weight comes from
- pasted screenshots and photos
- Text with no pictures
- tens of kilobytes
What the file is
A DOCX is an archive, not a document
Rename a copy to .zip and open it: you will find XML markup and a media folder holding every image you inserted.
That is why a dissertation with a dozen screenshots weighs three megabytes while a forty-page contract weighs eighteen kilobytes.
A screenshot is pasted at full size, however small you draw it
Dragging a picture smaller in Word changes only how it is displayed. Inside the file it stays exactly as big as it was.
What to do with a DOCX
Compression works through the pictures inside. Your text, layout and fonts come back exactly as you left them.
Compress DOCX