Minimize file size of Microsoft Word documents

What are the best ways to

• ensure a small filesize for Microsoft Word documents when starting from scratch
• reduce the size of existing Microsoft Word documents

using only tools available in the Office suite? (There's enough 15MB 3 page documents going around in the world)

Most of these will only help with existing documents, but saving as the Word 2007 DOCX format will help with new documents.

Word 2007

Compress Images

1. Click on an image
2. Go to the Picture Tools "Format" ribbon
3. Click "Compress Pictures"

There are then various options for deleting cropped areas, lowering the resolution etc.

Save as DOCX

The new DOCX format is much smaller as it's basically a ZIP file wrapper. Try renaming a .docx file to .zip to look inside if you're curious.

Remove Hidden Data

See this article from Microsoft Remove hidden data and personal information from Office documents

Word 2003

Compress Images

1. Right-click on an image
2. Click "Show Picture Toolbar"
3. Click "Compress Pictures"

Remove Hidden Data

Download the Office 2003/XP Add-in: Remove Hidden Data - "With this add-in you can permanently remove hidden data and collaboration data, such as change tracking and comments, from Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint files."

If you don't want to or can't install the Remove Hidden Data Add-in suggested by tjrobinson you can just select the entire document and paste it into a new Word doc. Then save it and you'll have gotten rid of the hidden data.