Geek Rant dot org » MS-Office

Powerpoint file sizes

daniel — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:43:21 +0000

Was dealing with a big Powerpoint presentation (PPT) file.

In the older PPT format, 6063 Kb.

When zipped, 4826 Kb. Not a bad saving given the number of pictures in it.

Here’s the interesting thing: in PPTX format: 3293 Kb.

Remembering that PPTX and other Office Open XML formats (DOCX, XLSX etc) do their compression on the file as a whole, not the individual componenets, so this is an interesting result.

Perhaps the old binary format is inherently less efficient/compressible than the new XML format.

Mind you, another big PPT I tried it with didn’t compress down as much; the PPTX was about the same size as the ZIPped PPT, so it obviously depends on the exact content

Outlook’s HTML message bloat

daniel — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 07:40:18 +0000

I was cleaning up my work mail, which is in Outlook using Exchange. I was staggered to see a relatively short email taking an inordinate amount of space.

Copied the text including headers to a text editor. It was 6300 bytes. But Outlook claimed it was taking 485 Kb — some 76 times the amount of text.

How can this be?

The message was in HTML format. Ah… Microsoft-generated HTML, a receipe for bloat. It seems particularly bad when the message contains a whole email trail.

So, using Outlook’s very handy Edit Message function (I’m surprised it’s not abused more often), I changed it to Plain Text. It’s not as if anything in there relied on the HTML in order to be legible.

Switcheroo, save, presto! 17 Kb. Not 6, but not 485 either. Much better.

Shame there isn’t an option to clean up MS HTML.

Another thing one can do is zip the attachments.

Tables: MS Word vs CSS

daniel — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 07:21:04 +0000

Here’s why I like CSS.

Here’s a table created in Microsoft Word and pasted into a CMS:

Description
Benefits Low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
No up-front hardware or software costs
Significantly less work effort to set-up a B2B integration solution since it involves mostly configuration tasks rather than programming
Free use of online development interface for developers
Data processing rates for usage are world’s best
Best Return on Investment (ROI)
ROI achieved sooner due to low up-front and on-going costs
Optimizes work effort since tasks removed or simplified
Higher ROI due to removal of costs
Speed of Delivery
Solutions delivered in days and weeks rather than months and years
No requirement to establish and maintain hardware and software
Support for standards reduces need for specialists and training
Control and Flexibility
Developers have full control over tenancies, design data and administration
Development can be done anywhere at anytime
Guaranteed Service
Secure and reliable infrastructure
Guaranteed service level
Data-back-up and disaster recovery provided
Market Leading Service
Most advanced functionality
First remotely configurable Integration, BPM and BI service
Wide support for industry standards and customizations
Future Proof
Quarterly releases ensure up-to-date functionality
Upgrades are our responsibility
Expert Assistance
Expertise and knowledge available for support, development, consulting and training

With a little CSS coding (held in an external file), it has become this:

Description
Benefits Low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) No up-front hardware or software
costs

Significantly less work effort to set-up a B2B integration solution
since it involves mostly configuration tasks rather than programming

Free use of online development interface for developers

Data processing rates for usage are world’s best
Best Return on Investment (ROI) ROI achieved sooner due to low
up-front and on-going costs

Optimizes work effort since tasks removed or simplified

Higher ROI due to removal of costs
Speed of Delivery Solutions delivered in days and
weeks rather than months and years

No requirement to establish and maintain hardware and software

Support for standards reduces need for specialists and training
Control and Flexibility Developers have full control over
tenancies, design data and administration

Development can be done anywhere at anytime
Guaranteed Service Secure and reliable infrastructure

Guaranteed service level

Data-back-up and disaster recovery provided
Market Leading Service Most advanced functionality

First remotely configurable Integration, BPM and BI service

Wide support for industry standards and customizations
Future Proof Quarterly releases ensure up-to-date
functionality

Upgrades are our responsibility
Expert Assistance Expertise and knowledge available
for support, development, consulting and training

Old version: 12250 bytes.

New version: 2490 bytes + 605 bytes of CSS. And much more maintainable, and it’ll be easier to change the table styles later.

OK, the new looks slightly different to the old (this was on purpose to enlarge the fonts a bit), but jeez.

PDF vs XPS

daniel — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:44:23 +0000

It appears that almost nobody except Microsoft themselves are publishing documents in XPS format. Not really surprising — why would anybody use it over PDF, for which readers are near-universally installed?

Searching Google for XPS documents vs PDF documents:

Office 2007: Menus and SP2

daniel — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:27:32 +0000

Try as you might, you can’t get used to the Office 2007 ribbons, and you want the menus back?

There have been a few paid solutions, but here’s a free one (for non-commercial use): UBitMenu (Corporate licence applies for business usage for €10 + €0.65 per user).

It adds a Menu ribbon which has the traditional menus, with extra items added for new Office 2007 functionality. Neato; I’ll be giving this a try pronto.

(via Office Watch)

By the way, Office 2007 SP2 is due out on April 28th… this MS blog article previews some of the new features included. (via Malcolm)

	Description
Benefits	Low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)	No up-front hardware or software costs Significantly less work effort to set-up a B2B integration solution since it involves mostly configuration tasks rather than programming Free use of online development interface for developers Data processing rates for usage are world’s best
	Best Return on Investment (ROI)	ROI achieved sooner due to low up-front and on-going costs Optimizes work effort since tasks removed or simplified Higher ROI due to removal of costs
	Speed of Delivery	Solutions delivered in days and weeks rather than months and years No requirement to establish and maintain hardware and software Support for standards reduces need for specialists and training
	Control and Flexibility	Developers have full control over tenancies, design data and administration Development can be done anywhere at anytime
	Guaranteed Service	Secure and reliable infrastructure Guaranteed service level Data-back-up and disaster recovery provided
	Market Leading Service	Most advanced functionality First remotely configurable Integration, BPM and BI service Wide support for industry standards and customizations
	Future Proof	Quarterly releases ensure up-to-date functionality Upgrades are our responsibility
	Expert Assistance	Expertise and knowledge available for support, development, consulting and training

	Description
Benefits	Low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)	No up-front hardware or software costs Significantly less work effort to set-up a B2B integration solution since it involves mostly configuration tasks rather than programming Free use of online development interface for developers Data processing rates for usage are world’s best
	Best Return on Investment (ROI)	ROI achieved sooner due to low up-front and on-going costs Optimizes work effort since tasks removed or simplified Higher ROI due to removal of costs
	Speed of Delivery	Solutions delivered in days and weeks rather than months and years No requirement to establish and maintain hardware and software Support for standards reduces need for specialists and training
	Control and Flexibility	Developers have full control over tenancies, design data and administration Development can be done anywhere at anytime
	Guaranteed Service	Secure and reliable infrastructure Guaranteed service level Data-back-up and disaster recovery provided
	Market Leading Service	Most advanced functionality First remotely configurable Integration, BPM and BI service Wide support for industry standards and customizations
	Future Proof	Quarterly releases ensure up-to-date functionality Upgrades are our responsibility
	Expert Assistance	Expertise and knowledge available for support, development, consulting and training