Custom Optimization Settings profiles
Our default Optimization Settings profile is recommended because these offer the best trade-off between reduction performance and quality and should suit most cases. However, it is possible to create/select different optimization settings profiles if required. To create a new Optimization Settings profile, select the option 'New profile...' in the Optimization Settings drop-down when configuring a folder. See Configuring folders (Adding, removing & setting rules) for more information.
Note: If you subsequently need to edit a custom profile, this is possible by clicking the relevant option in the 'Profiles' menu item.
Image Optimization
JPEG Quality
This sets the level of quality used by NXPowerLite when recompressing JPEG files. Lower values will result in more disk space reclaimed but will reduce the visual quality of images. We recommended using our default settings because these offer an excellent balance between space saving and quality.
Resize images for display at:
Documents often contain very large images, taken with digital cameras for example, which contain far more visual information than will ever be seen by a user in normal use. NXPowerLite can scale these images down to target a particular display resolution.
Delete private application data
Applications that create PDFs files, such as Adobe Photoshop or Acrobat, are able to store information within a PDF file that they can use when opening or editing the file. This information can only be used by the application which created the file and is not needed to display a PDF file. For most cases, we recommend deleting this data as it will have no effect on the use of the PDF file.
Subset Embedded Fonts
Enabling this feature means only those characters that are actually used in the lay-out are stored in the PDF. If the “$” character doesn’t appear anywhere in the text, that character is not included in the font. This means that PDF files with subsetted fonts are smaller than PDF files with embedded fonts.
Microsoft PowerPoint, Word & Excel
Delete cropped areas of pictures
Enabling this feature will trim cropped images within documents so that only the visible portion is stored in the file. This will reduce the size of the files, but users will no longer be able to edit cropped images to reveal the areas that have been removed.
Flatten embedded objects
Enabling this feature will cause embedded documents within document files to be "flattened", converting them into pictures. This will reduce the size of the files but users will no longer be able to double-click embedded documents to edit them.
For example, a Word document might contain an embedded Excel sheet with a table of figures. Double-clicking the table would normally open Excel to edit the figures, but flattening the document converts the table to a simple picture, preventing this from happening.
Reduce color depth of PNG images
When this feature is enabled NXPowerLite will reduce the number of colors used in PNG images within Office files, where it is appropriate. This method is called quantization and while it is a lossy process, compressed images look the same as the originals. NXPowerLite uses the same approach for standalone PNG images.
Microsoft PowerPoint Only
Optimize images on slide masters
It is possible to select whether or not images that appear on slide masters will be optimized. If this setting is enabled then all images in the PowerPoint will be optimized. If it is disabled NXPowerLite will not process images that appear on slide masters.
Microsoft Word Only
Remove compatibility with Word 2007
Microsoft built backward compatibility into any files created in Office 2010 onwards so that they could open in Office 2007. The effect on the file is to triple the size of any image-related content in the file. This setting is enabled by default in the default profile as there are not many users still using Office 2007.
If you have users still using Office 2007 then create a custom profile with this setting disabled.
Microsoft Excel Only
Clean excess cell formatting
Excessive cell formatting occurs within Excel files when ALL of the blank cells in a sheet have individual formatting applied. This can be hard to see when just looking at a sheet as the formatting could be setting the colour of the font to use for example, but there is no text.
This can create some incredibly large Excel files that to the casual observer appear to have very little content. NXPowerLite can clean this excess formatting without affecting the data in the file. In some cases, this results in a significant reduction in file size. One customer example file we saw reduced from 91MB to 31Kb!
JPEG
Remove EXIF data
JPEG images normally include extra information (metadata) inside the file such as the device on which the image was taken or location the image was taken plus many more. By default NXPowerLite will retain this data however, this option enables this data to be removed from each JPEG file.
Note: There are currently no settings for PNG or TIFF files
Profile Name
Each profile has to be given a unique name, although you can use the same profile name for another type of profile i.e. Files To Include profile or Schedule profile. We suggest using a descriptive name to help explain what it does or a specific area to which it should be applied. For example, you may want to call a particular profile 'Hidden data not deleted (12 months)' or 'Marketing area'.