Below are common obstacles to compression and alternative strategies for minimizing file size.
Here's two quick checks to try first:
Is the file already small?
In NXPowerLite, sizes are displayed in kilobytes (KB), anything below 1,000 KB (1 MB) is reasonably small and should be easily transferred by email. Most email caps have risen to 5 - 10 MB even in restricted scenarios, although there are still some areas where the limits are much tighter.
Try the Strong Compression profile?
If you used the Balanced Compression profile, then consider trying again with Strong Compression as it contains some extra settings that are designed to cut even more weight from your files.
If your file is still quite big it may be due to content that NXPowerLite cannot compress. This is where the View details feature can help.
View details
NXPowerLite 11 has a new built-in View details feature that can give you an instant file size breakdown. 👇
This feature combined with our latest guides below for manually reducing 'stubborn' content in each file format should give you what you need to reduce your file despite it not compressing with NXPowerLite.
For Microsoft Office or PDF files, the View details feature will show you which content is preventing your file reduction. These file-specific guides will help you to manually reduce the file, based on the type of content identified.
- PowerPoint, Word & Excel (Windows)
- PowerPoint, Word & Excel (macOS)
Specific reasons files aren't reduced
If the file had not been reduced, the reason will be indicated in the 'Results' window below the file name as shown below.
All of the possible reasons are detailed below:
| Reason | Explanation |
|---|---|
| File not reduced |
NXPowerLite didn't find any content it could compress. If it is an Office or PDF file, please follow the links above to manually reduce your file. If you aren't able to follow the instructions, and you'd like some help please share the file with us and we will investigate. |
| File already optimized by NXPowerLite |
NXPowerLite has already optimized this file. Reducing further could adversely affect the quality of the file. It is possible to re-optimize using more aggressive settings, for example using the 'Strong' profile. |
| File Type not supported (PDF portfolio) |
NXPowerLite cannot yet process PDF portfolio files. Please check with us for updates on the progress of this feature. |
| Password-protected or encrypted file |
NXPowerLite does not process these types of files. Please remove password protection or encryption from the file before using NXPowerLite. |
| Digitally signed file |
The file has a digital signature which NXPowerLite would render invalid and therefore cannot be processed. Remove the digital signature before processing and re-add afterwards. |
| Unexpected exception |
Something went wrong when processing the file. See Troubleshooting Tips for further help. |
| Unsupported tags (TIFF Images) |
The TIFF file format allows for applications to write private tags into the file to store information pertinent to that application. In order to compress a TIFF file our software needs to know the structure of the tags used so that it can copy them over to the compressed version of the file. Your image has tags we haven't added support for. Please share your file with us so we can identify and add support for the tags. Share your TIFF file |
| Optimization cancelled |
The optimization process was cancelled either before or during file processing. |
| File feature unsupported (resave and try again) |
This applies to fast-saved documents created in an early version of Microsoft Office. Save the file in a version of Office 2003 or greater and then optimize. |
| File type not supported |
The file has an extension that does not match the documented format of the file. A common example of this is a .RTF file saved with .DOC file extension. |
| File version not supported (too new) |
Files created by PDF version higher than v1.7 ext. 8 will not be processed. Please contact us to check whether an update of the software is available. |
| File version not supported (too old) |
Files created by versions of Office 97 or PDF with versions less than v1.4 will not be processed. |
| Unable to create PDF file (open failed) or (save failed) |
This normally indicates whether a file that has become corrupt or a problem with NXPowerLite's optimization engine. See Troubleshooting Tips |
System Issues
These issues indicate that there is a problem with the operating system on which NXPowerLite is installed. Each error listed below indicates the nature of the problem. Please contact your system administrator if you are not able to resolve the issues, or alternatively contact us for help.
| Reason | Explanation |
|---|---|
| (access denied) | NXPowerLite is running with a user that doesn't have full access to the file. Change file permissions to allow NXPowerLite to process the file. |
| (file doesn't exist) | The path of the file has changed since the file was added to NXPowerLite (i.e. the file has been deleted, moved or renamed) |
| (folder doesn't exist) | The path of the folder has changed since the file was added to NXPowerLite (i.e. the folder has been deleted, moved or renamed) |
| (sharing violation) | Another application or system process is holding the file open so NXPowerLite cannot access it to process the file. |