Yep - soft deletion was what used to bloat Microsoft Word files - lots of no-longer used data (like embedded pictures say) was still stored in the file after a zillion edits. The SOP for those docments was to save it to a temporary file, delete the old working copy and then rename the temporary file back to the old filename. Apparently saving as a new file did not carry the cruft over. Not sure if that applies to modern editions of Word, but was cerainly true back around 2005. I use LibreOffice now, with it set to save as a docx type (so if I send it to oters they do not get confused) so have not had to suffer Word and its foibles in a decade+
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So I now have a "cruft clearance" routine run over files on load, and will do so on save as well. That may save a fair few bytes since the run length compression will pack a load of 0's down to a couple of bytes.
This scenario's cruftiness was shown up by the user campaign's reshuffling of the unit deck to insert the campaign core troops and supports etc, so some cruft tables then found themselves aligned with reshuffled 'live' units, and the cruft had been tabled to fire a programmed routine. Hilarity then ensued!
. Cruft removal ensures the side tables are deleted as well as zeroing the crufty "inactive" units lying around in the main unit table.