First, how I work.
I’m a teacher, I use 1 pptx file per day.
To create the pptx of next monday, I duplicate the one from the previous monday.
I’ve been working this way for 2 years.
Second: my issue
Lately, it stroke me that my files where “heavy” while not having much content.
For instance this file: 20241203.pptx (3.0 MB)
It only contains 19 slides, with few pictures.
And yet, it weights 3049 ko.
I wanted to know more, so I converted the file to a zip, then used windirstat to find where heavy elements where.
Here is the result:
There are more than 900 slide layouts which are kept in the file.
And I guess it will continue to increase as long as I’ll keep copying a file to create a new one.
So here is what I consider as a bug: is it normal to store all this history ?
Wouldn’t it be more logical to remove all the unused slidelayouts ?
Indeed, attached file has a lot of styles. However, I frankly do not understand how the editor should consider them as unused if they are actually in the file. The editor simply allows utilizing everything that is available in the file, it does not manage created data in the file, hence when adding more layouts to the same file time after time, they are actually “used” by the file.
Imagine that the file is a container. When adding new items to the container, they stay there even though you are not using them per se.
Considering described scenario where the same file is copied every time, the amount of new layouts will keep growing unless they are cleared manually or you decide to create brand new presentation with default amount.
In fact, the core question is “what is a layout ?”
Is it a special disposition of elements stored specifically as layout ? Or is it any disposition of elements in a slide ?
Because I’ve never created special layouts. I just rearrange elements in slides.
Has far as I remember, in powerpoint, you have to toggle to the “masque” mode (I don’t know the English word) to edit slide layouts.
Back when I was using it, I never noticed such an increase of file size over time, and yet I was working the same way.
Hence, what OO is considering as a layout ?
What is the trigger to create a new one ?
Isn’t there room for improvement here ?
To complete my previous answer, the number of layouts might have increased because I often copy/paste slides from I file to another.
In this case, I often choose to copy the layout from the source file.
I guess it is importing the layout from the source file in the target file.
=> Can you confirm this ?
Thanks.
As you suggested, I tryed to remove manually the useless layouts.
First it allowed me to discover the “layout editing mode” (“masque” in French), which I was aware of but never used before.
After the clean-up, my file passed from 4000ko to 1Mo
So once your confirmed the first point, I have my answer and I now what not to do
@Constantine
You can have a look at the video bellow:
before pasting, there is a certain number of layouts
simple pasting of a slide doesn’t add a layout in the list
choosing to keep the source layout add a new layout in the list
So I guess that’s indeed the cause of the increase of my files’ size.
Here is a suggestion of improvement.
I always copy files btw files, and layouts are - I guess - the same.
So, wouldn’t it be possible for OO to compare layouts before adding a new one in the list ?
So, I can confirm that the layout duplication that is done according to the scenario above is a bug. I mean the scenario with copying the slide with source formatting - it actually also stores the layout.
