Hi, Colum:
Thanks for the reply. I'll try the .CPD experiment on a COPY
of the project (no fool am I!) after I post this first reply.
First: Thank goodness, the project is on a local drive.
Second: Here's an experiment I tried yesterday:
I tracked down the largest image file in my project, a .jpg
whose size is 1.5 MB. I "editorially" removed the photo from the
content in which it was included, saved the topic and the project
and closed RoboHelp to give it the best chance of keeping its act
together in terms of the database of files.
Reopened it and generated an Unused Files report. Noted that
my now-editorially-unneeded file was now duly listed as such, and
removed it in Windows Explorer. Closed and reopened RH. Compiled.
Now, finally something less boring, that poses a real
question.
With the removal of a 1.15 MB .jpg file, the .chm file was
reduced from its previous size of "82, 334 kb" to "81, 224 kb" for
the new, reduced-content build.
This size reduction is about 1.1 MB, is about the size of the
ONE file I removed.
Given the compression that RoboHelp presumably performs in
making a .CHM, shouldn't the DIFFERENCE in size be SMALLER after
removal of this one file?
A bit of dreary subtlety perhaps, but it leads me back to the
inexplicable-seeming growth of my .CHMs even on occasions when I've
definitely only added text to the project.
An example of this is adding 400 words of text and getting
scary-seeming increases of something like a whole MB.
Hope I'm not rambling too much, but I can see this trend
reaching real problem-status soon. My .CHMs are posted for download
by our product's users, and even though they're presumably all in
professional facilites with swell internet connections, sooner or
later, I'm going to get complaints. (I've already gotten raised
eyebrows.)
Whew.