I just started playing with OLE using general fields and I was curious about how large the related .ftp files would get. After experimenting around, I noticed a couple of things I didn't like.

1. Linking (rather than embedding) doesn't seem to buy one much as far as space saving. Apparently, a local copy of the file is still kept in the .ftp and these may be synchronized automatically or manually. Is there a way to just store a link?

2. I noticed that linking a word file of 24K bytes caused my .ftp to increase in size by about 53K. Ouch! Any clues as to what might be going on here?

3. I noticed that clearing a general field did not reduce the size of the .ftp file. Apparently the data is deleted but not expunged. Is there a means for effectively 'packing' .ftp files after links or embededed files are cleared?