TR Community tip: Reduce file sizes when using photos

This tip was submitted within the forums by TR member aabishop@….

Many people are now using photos from digital cameras in Word documents and PowerPoint presentations. These can often create enormous file sizes.

If you are using any type of graphic from any source, use the following process to reduce your file sizes dramatically:

1. After downloading pictures from your camera, you can insert them into any Office document or presentation by clicking Insert | Picture | From File
2. Locate the folder where the photo resides and click Insert
3. Resize the picture as required (if you are resizing manually, always use the corner handles to maintain height/width proportion)
4. Use Edit | Cut (or Ctrl+X) to cut the picture
5. Click Edit | Paste Special
6. Scroll down and select Picture (JPEG)
7. Click OK

This will convert your photos to JPEGs and keep you file sizes manageable. Read the full thread. Also, if you know other quick and easy ways to reduce the size of photos, please share them in the discussion thread.

Send in your own TR Community tip that we can feature in the TR Out Loud blog to trol@techrepublic.com.