Database ?

For the past several years, I have kept track of my plants in a Word document, which is essentially one big table and includes photographs of each plant. I am now receiving an error message saying I cannot open the file because it exceeds 512 megabytes, presumably the culprits are the inserted photos. Couple questions: 1) What can I do to open my file? 2) Assuming I can open the file, what can I do to reduce the size so opening it in the future is not a problem? 3) Any suggestions of converting the Word file to some sort of plant-oriented database program? I do not have Access, nor have I used that program for about 10 years. It would of course be nice to be able to convert my Word file to a database, but I'm not totally opposed to just re-entering the information. I have a hard copy of the Word file (I typically print it out in the fall after making changes over the growing season).

Thanks for any insight.