This information was provided by Claris Corporation on 16 March 1998, and incorporated into Apple Computer's Tech Info Library.

When converting a MacDraw II document to ClarisDraw or MacDraw Pro the size on disk may increase dramatically. For instance, converting the MacDraw II sample document "Floor Plan #1" to ClarisDraw will increase the size on disk from 16k to 36k. On the other hand, a sample file from MacDraw Pro called "Dances of Spheres" will only increase from 36k to 40k when converted to ClarisDraw.

Explanation:
* MacDraw II only has the ability to work with 8 colors while ClarisDraw has the ability to work with 256 colors and MacDraw Pro millions of colors. The overhead for handling more colors can be significant.
* If your document has an imported picture then ClarisDraw may need to convert it to an editable Paint Frame. Again, the overhead for more capability will be represented in the file size.
* The file packing method for ClarisDraw and MacDraw Pro is different than MacDraw II. When designing the method for writing the information into a file there are tradeoffs between file size and speed. Specifically, the file size for ClarisDraw is larger but the access speed to the data in the file is faster.

* In general, MacDraw Pro and ClarisDraw are more sophisticated than MacDraw II and that is represented in the file size.