ACAD increasing file sizes from one release to another

[RFUSE]

I have been revising some older blocks dating back to 2003 and earlier.  What was a file size of 28KB increased to 127KB!  In most cases the only change was converting text to an attribute.  As a test I took a 2004 file and saved it - with no changes - to another name and the file size increased from 28KB to 124KB!!!  That's an increase of over 4.4 times!  Many of my 1998 - 2006 files are in the 26KB - 40KB range.

That's a bit much of an increase over several ACAD versions!  Is there a way to reduce the file size?  I did perform a complete Purge before saving.  Have I missed some clever trick?

I am running ACAD Version 2014 with SP-1.

Just wondering.

R

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> [...] file size increased from 28KB to 124KB!!!

>> That's an increase of over 4.4 times!

Don't measure that value like percentage, let's say it increased by 100kB and that is nowadays close to nothing.

The situation today is that the header of the file has much more settings to store than ten years/10 releases ago and so even an empty document might raise about 100kB.

And saving from 2014 back to an old format does not forget the new settings, it only stores it in another way so if you open a drawing that was created with 2014 and saved back as DWG2004 does not forget it's content (as much as possible 😉 ).

At least: where is the problem, I don't think your harddisk space is critical because of some 100kb more usage?

- alfred -

[pendean]

Ther are no reasons to be worried about 100k file size increases: note info in the files that ever before. Unless you are running a substandard PC with so little HD space, this is a waste of your time IMHO. There are better things to occupy your time with in AutoCAD.

Otherwise explain this concern with tiny file size increases if you honestly think it's worth the time and effort.

[RFUSE]

No particular problem, just wondering. 

Yes, I have lots of HD space.  I guess having started with R7 where RAM, HD, processor, video card, etc. were very critical, it's hard to forget.

Thanks for the reminder.

R

[dgorsman]

Just look into the new features - constraints, annotation scales.  Also remember things such as REGAPPs and vertical content.  Your system may be automatically inserting more information that you intend to (custom page set-ups, for example), just aren't considering right now since this is a block and not a "drawing".

[olivier.eckmann]

Hi 

Disabling RASTERPREVIEW stored in the DWG is one possible solution to keep small file size.

Olivier