So here's some interesting behaviour I'm witnessing with PowerPoint 2003. Try this at home, kiddies:

  1. Create a new PowerPoint 2003 presentation
  2. Type some text, any text, in the slide
  3. Save the presentation somewhere, anywhere, on your hard-drive
  4. Navigate to that location and note the size of the file
  5. Save the presentation again (without changing anything)
  6. Note the size of the file again
  7. Continue steps 5 and 6 until you are suitably befuddled

I've tried this on two systems with the same results so hopefully you'll see the same thing I did: namely that the file size increments with each save until a certain point, then reverts back to its original size and starts the cycle over again.

Not sure what it's saving with each increment but this is kind of weird behaviour. I noticed it originally on a presentation file from a client. It has nigh on 300 slides in it and he added "three or four" and sent me the new one. The old one was 890KB, the new one 1604KB.

Me: Are you very sure you didn't add say, pictures of Anna Nicole Smith into the presentation
He: Well, the before and after pictures are an excellent depiction of the variability of oil prices but in the end, yes, I did take them out.

During various save cycles, the presentation will cycle through the following sizes: 899KB, 1103KB, 1295KB, 1494KB, and finally, a hard-drive-thrashin' 1693KB. That's a gain of 88% from the original file size!

Any guesses about these drastic mood swings for a simple Hillbilly?