SharePoint has become a very appealing Intranet solution for many companies. SharePoint is more than a simple cloud-based solution to store documents. The platform allows for a central space for rich collaboration and communication for all employees in a company whether they work in an office or at home.
SharePoint offers a plethora of services and features all to ensure that everyone has easy and efficient access to all the data, documents and resources that they could possibly need. But this platform is more than a simple cloud-based file explorer. Any top IT Support Company would highly suggest companies make use of customizations like images and formatting to create a visually appealing and easy-to-navigate platform for everyone.
When it comes to images on SharePoint sites,
they can be a great way to make everything look more appealing but the reality is that the types of images used and the size they take up can actually greatly affect the performance of the site. This means that the page can take noticeably longer to load for everyone because the loading speed is dependent on the combined size of the whole page, including the images, HTML, JavaScript and CSS.
A simple but effective way to have images
but still have the best possible performance is by optimizing your images. This can done by using sprites and compression and resizing. Additionally, with SharePoint image renditions, the page can have a single large image and then display sections of the same image for it to be reuse rather than reloading it each time.
Firstly, let’s cover using sprites to speed up image loading time.
Sprites are really handy when you want to have multiple images on one page but when each individual image needs to load it can slow down how long it takes to load the page. When making an image sprite you’re essentially making one image out of multiple where each of the smaller images has absolute positioning on the page. Ultimately this will save bandwidth and reduce the number of server requests. You no longer have to download several images but rather just one and then cache and reuse it as needed. Many providers of IT Support in London consider this to be a form of image bundling. Image sprites are best use for images that you won’t changing often like iconsÂ
Another way to optimize images
for page loading is using image compression and optimization. This step essentially reduces the image file size. Generally, images don’t need to be very high resolution when they will take up little space on the page anyway.
The most recommended way to resize an image according to SharePoint Consultants is by looking at the maximum dimensions that the image will viewe on the site. Once you have the specific dimensions then using an image editor to do a quick resize is simple.
After an image is resize to certain dimensions users can also optimize the compression. The goal is to get the image size as low as possible while still keeping a level of quality for everyone who has access to the page. A great way to test you haven’t compressed a file too much is by always working on a high-definition display.
Another great feature that users can use to speed up page downloads is SharePoint image renditions. This feature allows users to create pre-defined image dimensions for different images. Without it, an image is still loading at the full resolution of the image even though the size is fixed by the CSS. With image renditions, an image will be automatically cropped and locked to the defined aspect ratio.
In conclusion, while the ability to add as many images and in any size as you want to each SharePoint page is a great feature, it can significantly impact the loading speed for everyone. Microsoft has ensured that there are multiple ways to optimize images so that you can have the same result of looks but still keep sites efficient and accessible.