A while back, I wrote about how I had to compress a PowerPoint document to less than 10MB in size so that I could share it on my website. It is a workflow I’d hadn’t needed to do before, so I was surprised to learn that it was possible to dramatically reduce the size of PowerPoint files, with negligible image quality loss.
It got me to thinking about the possibility of bulk compressing files on my small 256GB MacBook Air hard drive, in order to free up storage space.
While you might think individual documents, PDFs, eBooks, and so on, are small files, I have thousands of them on my hard drive. Compressing them by 70%-90% could free up several gigabytes of valuable hard drive space. For example, some of the PowerPoint files on my hard drive are 20MB, 50MB, and even 100MB in size. A dozen or so files like this quickly consumes a chunk of the small 256GB hard drive I have.
For the past few weeks I’ve been using an app called NXPowerLite Desktop from the company that make WeCompress, the free online file compression service I’d written about.
These are the compression workflows I’ve been running:
First, I’ve been compressing all of my lesson plans and resources, in order to store them in the cloud. This way, I can access these files remotely from anywhere I have access to a PC or mobile device. Compressing the files before uploading them online saves on Internet bandwidth, and storage space in my various cloud services.
Next, I’ve been using a program called DEVONThink to house all of my research for my websites. Basically, I organise and store all of my research documents, e-Books, web pages, and notes in a database that can be accessed in DEVONThink on my Mac, or a mobile device. By compressing these documents before I save them in DEVONThink, I drastically reduce the database size. That makes it easier to back up and sync that data through the cloud, and uses less of my limited iPhone storage space. I’m going to write more about how I use DEVONThink, separately.
Finally, I’ve been using NXPowerLite to compress files for my website. I compress all of the images you see on this website so that they load faster, and use less of your bandwidth. Compressing them offline saves me uploading and then downloading them via the cloud. It also means I can complete that workflow anywhere and anytime.
How NXPowerLite works
What I love about NXPowerLite is that it combines power and simplicity.
Compressing files is as simple as dropping those files into the home screen of the app, or the NXPowerLite icon in the Mac’s Dock. You can also add files by tapping the ‘+’ button in the app, and navigating through the Finder file directory structure on your hard drive.
If you’re happy with the default level of compression offered by NXPowerLite, you simply tap ‘Optimise’, and you’re good to go. After you compress the document, you can view it in the original folder, or one click will open up your email client, with the compressed file added as an attachment to a new draft email, ready to send.
NXPowerLite has default settings for file compression that are recommended for most users to provide a good level of document compression, with negligible loss of image quality. I’ve been using the default settings, and I’m more than happy with the results. Most of my files are being compressed in the order of 75% – 90% in size, without a noticeable loss in image quality. For those files that don’t achieve good compression ratios, this is often because they’ve already been optimised or compressed by someone else.
If you want though, you can be more aggressive with your compression settings inside the app’s preferences. Here, you can adjust a range of parameters for each different file type.
For example, when you compress a Microsoft Word document, you can choose to ‘flatten’ any files that are already embedded in that document. For example, in a Microsoft Word Document, you might have a picture whose data source is a Microsoft Excel file. By default, you can click on the image and edit the data points directly in your Word document. By flattening the image, you will continue to see the image in your Microsoft Word document, but you will no longer be able to edit those data points in Microsoft Word.
Similarly, for a PowerPoint file, where you have cropped images, you can delete the cropped areas of images within that presentation. That will reduce the file size of that PowerPoint file. However, you will no longer be able to adjust the cropping of those images in the original presentation.
These are the kind of trade-offs you can make to increase the compression ratio of your files.
Using the app’s settings, you can pick and choose which trade-offs you want to make. The Help file inside the app enables you to understand how each of the settings work.
And this is the difference when compared to using online file compression services. With online compression services, you often don’t get to pick and choose the trade-offs you want to make in order to compress your files. You also don’t get to choose how aggressively you want to try to reduce the file size.
There are a few other settings in the app’s preferences that enable you to tailor your workflows to suit your specific needs.
For example, you can set whether you want the compressed file to replace the original, or to create a duplicate file. Similarly, there’s also a setting where you can append the name of the compressed file with some kind of text to distinguish that file from the original. You can also set a separate output folder, if you desire. This helps if you want to batch process documents.
The other thing I’ve noticed is that the software hasn’t yet frozen, or crashed when I’ve submitted multiple files for conversion. That was one of my main concerns about using the app.
The only shortcoming of the program I’ve found has to do with large-scale batch document compression. I’d love to be able to just drop entire directory structures into the software, and have it automatically compress the files. While you can drop an entire folder full of files into NXPowerLite, you can’t drop a whole external hard drive, or nested folder structure into the app.
My understanding is that there is another (server) version of the software which performs this task, if you have a PC. That is, you can automatically compress nested folders of files on a hard drive. It is also possible to monitor particular folders for the addition of new files, which will then automatically be compressed. I realise this is a much more demanding workflow, and if you were a small business or company, I would definitely recommend checking out that solution.
Conclusion
Overall, I really like the way NXPowerLite works. NXPowerLite has an attractive interface, and It is simple and intuitive to use. Extra tools to refine your workflows are conveniently tucked away under the hood. The default settings provide a high level of file compression for most usage cases, and its easy to understand the trade-offs for situations where you’re seeking more aggressive file compression. It’s one of those programs that just do one thing, however, it does it really well.
NXPowerLite is a program that is most suited for those who want to tailor how their documents are compressed, have a regular need to compress files, or have a project which requires you to compress a large number of files.
Other (free) file compression tools
If you have smaller file compression needs, you can do that online, for free. Here are my favourite free online file compression utilities:
JPEG + PNG: WeCompress | tinypng
Microsoft Word + PowerPoint documents: WeCompress
PDF: SmallPDF
What I like about these websites is they do the compression task without asking you to create a user account, or imposing other onerous restrictions on you using their service. (Most have a limit on how much you can upload at once, or over a given period of time.)
Finally, if you have small needs (20 photos/day) for offline image conversion, I’ve found JPEGmini Lite (for Mac) to be useful.
