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I have noticed only now that my Word 2010 (docx) documents that are just a single page long and include a simple WMF vector graphic and a bit of text are almost 1 MB large. The Word document is only 50 kB and a PDF file created with Bullzip PDF printer is about the same size. So what is Microsoft writing into the other 950 kB?

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Does the output match? I am going to guess Word would match the PDF format closer then Bullzip ( persnally never heard of it ). – Ramhound Dec 8 '11 at 19:17
Could be several things -- Image size/quality, embedding fonts, etc. See: When exporting a document as a pdf file in Word 2010, what's the difference between standard and minimum size publishing? and How to compress .pdfs in word 2007? and compressing pdf created by office 2007 for some ways to deal with it. – techie007 Dec 8 '11 at 19:22
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Word is converting the vector graphic into a bitmap or PNG and embedding it in the document with limited or no compression. Check the PDF settings and see if you can adjust that.

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You can't tweak Word's PDF generation at all. You can only choose from "normal" and "web" quality, but that makes only a few kB difference. I'll have to check the vector to pixel conversion, that should be visible in very high zoom factors. – LonelyPixel Dec 9 '11 at 10:41
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Strange, when I zoom into the PDF document, I see rastered text and graphics for a very short time. It looks like a Word window screenshot, including ClearType-smoothed text in a low resolution. After that moment, the content is replaced by high-resolution vector drawings, for graphic and text. How can I look into the PDF document to find out whether there's a hidden pixel image inside that can be removed? – LonelyPixel Dec 9 '11 at 20:01
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