Wanting Low .chm File Size

[jwallace]

Hello,

I am developing a .chm project to go with our software.

I have 54 topics and want to make the .chm file size as small as possible, ideally to under 999 KB. Any suggestions as to how to do this?

Many thanks,

J.Wallace

[RamonS]

One recommendation is to use images very sparingly or not at all.
But why 999 kB? Just being curious.

[jwallace]

It is just a ball park figure. I don't know what is a sensible benchmark for 54 topics. I have an old copy from pre-Madcap that is 678 KB. It has little to no formatting and very few screenshots so my challenge is to create something that is user-friendly and low in KB.

[NorthEast]

The size will depend on what is contained in your project.

The topic files (htm) in your help are usually quite small; average topics in my help are usually 5-15KB. Image files can be quite large though, depending on the dimensions of the image and its file format.

As you don't have many topics, I would check the size of images in your help. To keep image sizes small, use compressed formats like PNG, JPG, or GIF; and avoid formats like BMP.

Apart from that, bear in mind that the output includes everything in your Content folder; you can use conditions to exclude files from the output.

[jwallace]

Thanks very much for your feedback Ramon and Dave. It is all very helpful.

Best regards.

Could any one else let me know what their average topic size is? -Thanks.

[RamonS]

I worked on projects where the topic size is from one sentence to over a dozen paragraphs. Not sure what the average is and not sure if an average is a helpful metric.

[jwallace]

Sorry for sounding so obtuse, but what about the amount of bullets, drop-down lists, expanding text and internal links etc. in the actual topic. Would that have any great impact?

Many thanks.

[JohnB]

The Madcap Feedback option can add quite a bit to file size, e.g. for one of our .chm projects, 500k without and 750k with.

- John

[RamonS]

Sorry for sounding so obtuse, but what about the amount of bullets, drop-down lists, expanding text and internal links etc. in the actual topic. Would that have any great impact?

Many thanks.

Not having it will shave off a few tags, but I doubt that some <ul> or <ol> tags really make a huge difference. It is something to look into if you end up with a file that is too large for your taste.

[NorthEast]

I'd suggest just looking at your project in the File List tab (or use Windows Explorer), and see what files are in your project and how large they are.