ESP Projects Ltd: IT Support - Sheffield

How many of us are aware that there is a big difference between the image files used by printers and the image files that are used in websites, documents and email messages? If you don’t know, you should!  When printers and graphic designers create an image for you, they make it huge and at a very high resolution, so that they can print in top quality and use the same image on any medium, whether it be the humble letterhead or as a 50-foot high projection. Such images are both physically large (size on the page) AND may have a very large file size (>2Mb) as every pixel of colour is individually identified.

However, when these files get sent through the web – whether in an email or on a website – they need to be compressed. This means they must be made smaller, both in terms of size on the page AND in terms of the depth and clarity of colour (i.e. file size). If you think about it, when you put a logo in an email you only need it to be a few centimetres high. Similarly, when you visit a website, you want images to appear quickly, not have to wait minutes for them to download. You need smaller images both ‘on the page’ and in terms of ‘file size’.

There are wizards within Windows XP that allow you compress images but they don’t pop up every time you need them. Similarly, graphic editing software – such as Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop - is very expensive, and buying it just for the one or two occasions where you need to compress a logo is overkill.

Thankfully, Office 2003 contains a useful little utility called Microsoft Office Picture Manager. This tool allows you to compress JPEG format images in both ‘size on the page’ and ‘file size’. Using it is simple:

1) Look through ‘My Computer’ until you find the image you want to compress.
2) Right-Click the image, then select Open With > Microsoft Office Picture Manager
3) Once the image has opened, go to File > Export
4) The dialog box on the right of the screen has four questions. All you need to do is answer these and you are done.
5) Question 1 is about where you want to save the compressed file to
6) Question 2 is about the name of the new compressed file. We suggest you change the file name otherwise you will overwrite the original.
7) Question 3 asks the compression ratio (the file size): click ‘JPEG Options’ and pick a Custom Compression. Use the slider to reduce the file size of the image – you can always go through these steps again if the quality is not good enough. Once you have picked, click ‘Return to Export’ at the bottom of the dialog box.
8) Question 4 is about ‘size on the page’. You can either pick from the pre-set sizes or click ‘Resize’. This option allows you to either set a specific size (if you already know how big it needs to be), or better still a % of the original size. Once you are done, click ‘Return to Export’.
9) Double check everything is set up right and then click OK. The Picture Manager will save the compressed file where you specified. Go ahead, browse to it and take a look!
10) Images sent in emails should never exceed 500kb and most (especially logos) can easily be reduced to under 20kb. Any images stored on websites that are larger then 40kb will visibly slow down your website.

Microsoft Office Picture Manager also allows you to crop, rotate and perform some image enhancing functions on your pictures too. As well as JPEG compression it also allows you to resize GIF formats too. It does not however work with EVERY image format. If you cannot open a particular image file, ask the person who supplied you with that file for a JPEG version.

Good Luck!!