[Issue] How to compress images on OpenOffice Writer?

[Quetzalcoatl]

Hi
I have done a text on OpenOffice Writer 2.4 with a lot of images and it is 1.2Mb
Then I export it to .doc format and it was 1.3Mb
I opened it on Microsoft Word and I click on an image and select the option to reduce all images in the document, and finally I save it.
Guess what? It was only 354kb !!!!!!!!!
Is there an easy way to do this on OpenOffice Writer?
There is an extension for Impress named "minimize" but I would like some thing similar for Writer.
I have seen in some forums and many people suggest to copy the images to gimp and reduce the image size and after insert them again to the document...I don´t like to do all that work because if I have a lot of images it requires a lot of work and time
Thanks for your attention

[acknak]

There is no automated way to optimize for file size in Writer.

It would be nice to have the option, but it is complicated because the optimization depends on what the intended output format will be. If all you ever want to do is view the document on a computer screen, you can reduce images to about 120 pixels per inch. However, such an optimized document would give poor quality in printed form, which would require images of at least 300 pixels per inch.

in most cases, the file size is less important because the Writer document is not really intended to be the delivered product. It is primarily a storage format for editing. For a final, delivered document, you would either print the document--in which case the file size does not matter at all--or export a PDF, where you do have control over the image resolution.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

See this issue: Add ability to resize inserted pics

[Hagar Delest]

I don't think we really need it. OOo is not an image manager so better use a dedicated application to optimize the pics (cropping, saving as png or jpg depending on the pic type, resizing, ...).

Under Windows, XnView is a smart one, you can do batch conversions to resize (or anything you want: rotate, ...) at once tons of pics.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I think we do need it, but it needs doing right.

Linking all images is fine if you don't need to share files or move them — it keeps the OpenOffice document size to a minimum and the image quality as high as is available. However, many users do need to share files, and that means that images need to be embedded. Embedding high resolution images means huge documents, slow load times, etc. This is definitely not workable.

The images need to be linked, but an embedded copy should be included in the document. When the user resizes an image, a new embedded copy at 96 dpi is created for display purposes so the images is not progressively degraded. The resolution to use for embedded copies should be a user option with a default of 96 dpi. When the saved file is sent to someone else, the recipient just gets the embedded images.

If the current user produces a PDF, then the linked images should be used, and any compression specified in the PDF output options are then applied to the original images.

[Phil]

Also see the thread Image compression in writer where we already had an interesting discussion on this topic.

KR, phil

[taura]

I just DLd OO today and have been both a PC and Mac user before. I definitely think there is a need to have a "compress images" function in this tool without having to manipulate the original image before putting it into the Write document. My reason is that I do a lot of work with putting screen grabs into the document and I do not want to waste time doing a lot of work to make a file of reasonable email size. The project I am working on in Word allows me to compress the images and go from a document 2megs down to 900kbs which is a good outcome. What else can I do to beg for this functionality because I can't use this software without it.

[TheGurkha]

Personally I'm against it. It makes no sense to me to include all sorts of tools inside OOo (there are many that are suggested to be included, in the way that this is). Better solutions already exist, and are freely available elsewhere, and, with all due respect to the OOo developers, they probably do a better job than the over-stretched OOo development resource could manage to to do. They are over-burdened with the development and maintenance of OOo as it is. And then there is the question of bloat.

But, there is an open issue for this, iy ou want to vote for then go over to the issue tracker site and register there, and you can vote for it, up to 2 votes per person. Votes are one of the things taken into consideration when the decision is made about what to include, fix, defer or reject.

Add ability to resize inserted pics.

[igguidor]

"TheGurkha" The issue is not about including all sorts of tools in OOo but inserting something that everyone needs to be working with. Inserting / Including pictures in a word processing document seems to be a common / required standard nowadays. I am not criticizing in anyway the work of developers who I'm sure are overwhelmed with requests and with bug fixes OOo but they have provided the ability to insert pictures but seemed to have stopped half way. Being an intermediate-advance user myself, I do not find it annoying to resize my pictures before inserting them; that's not the case for everyone.

[graveen]

Simple issue:

inserting an image from a scanner.
nowadays, a lot of tools are totally hidding the advanced parameters (dpi, size, bits per pixels...). you generally choose photo - color or grayscale, document - color or grayscale.

what ever you choose, the resulting scanned document is *way* too high. A simple resize to page size 'd largely fit.

I vote 'very utile'