Small files good, big files bad
It's bad - some might say rude - to put big files on websites.
When you retrieve a file from your computer it usually appears instantly, even if it is very large. When you retrieve a file from the Internet it has to pass through a dozen or more computers, which may be thousands of miles apart, connected by different cabling and networking technologies. Finally it gets down a wire into your PC.
That last connection is often the slowest of all. A 56k modem to connecting a PC to the Internet typically only transfers 40 thousand bytes of information each second. To download a 1 megabyte file will take 2-3 minutes. A typical 10 page word document will take around 20 seconds to appear. The situation is improving as more people connect by broadband, but it’s not safe to assume that everyone will have a connection that runs as fast as yours.
So, when we upload files to a website we need to think about keeping them small, so we don’t keep our readers waiting.
Some tips for smaller files
- Avoid Office file formats - Word and other Microsoft Office programs stuff LOTS of formatting information into the file. You can avoid this and still retain the formatting (pretty nearly) if you use the Save as HTML option. This is particularly effective for short documents - you can cut a 30k document to less than 10k.
It has the added benefit that your reader over the Internet does not need to have the same software as you in order to see your document. You can do it with Excel and Powerpoint too.
Alternatively you can turn office files into PDF documents which can be read with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. This is a better bet if your office file has pictures in it.
Some people prefer to use PDF for their Office files because the PDF cannot be changed so easily.
See What file format TO USE.
- Make photos smaller - a photo that seems a reasonable size when printed will appear many times larger when displayed on the screen. That's because printers put more dots of color (pixels) in the same space.
An inkjet printer may print 400 dpi (dots per inch) while a screen only displays 72 dpi.
See Making pictures for the web.
-
Crop pictures to exclude unnecessary background.
If it’s a person, just show head and shoulders. If it’s a group, crop to the people nearest the edge - and is it important that we see their feet? -
Use the best image format - that usually means
JPEG (filenames end in .jpg) for photographs and
GIF (filenames end in .gif) for drawings, block graphics or images of text (e.g. logos).
There’s lots of software that can help you manage image files.
If you don’t have any, download IrfanView for free. It’s small, clever and easy to use - a lot less complicated than Adobe Photoshop.
See What file format TO USE. - Reduce colors in images - a jpeg photograph converted to 'grayscale' takes a lot less memory than an image than a full color image.
A block graphic or logo in a gif file will be smaller if you reduce the number of colors in it's palette.
If you don't have an image management program, You can use IrfanView to reduce colors and crop and resize images.
