What's new in NXPowerLite Desktop 10.0.1
Jul 10, 2023
- When removing EXIF data from JPEGs we now retain the orientation data, so optimised photos will display with the correct orientation in Windows.
- Custom optimise profiles are now listed alphabetically by name (we’re not entirely sure why they weren’t previously — sorry about that)
- We’ve added common resolution names to the list of resolutions e.g. 4k, 1080p etc. to make it easier to pick out the one you need
- It is now possible to drag and drop a file shortcut onto NXPowerLite
- Fixed lots of high-dpi issues that caused the app to look bad on high resolution displays
- Lots of visual tweaks and polishing
- We crushed many bugs, some big, some small
New in NXPowerLite Desktop 9.0.4 (Mar 11, 2021)
- Version 9 of our hugely popular file compressor NXPowerLite Desktop is almost ready. It’s down to the final vital effort of polishing, quality assurance and testing before it can be declared officially ready. We will be releasing it week commencing 23rd November 2020, just before Thanksgiving.
- While you are waiting, here’s a quick look at what’s coming in version 9.
- Choose your settings in Explorer:
- Now you can select both the output folder and optimize profile each time you are compressing files, which makes it much more effective if you regularly need to compress files for different purposes. If you prefer to just use the same profile every time without being asked, you can configure this in Preferences.
- Frequently used folders:
- Previously NXPowerLite only provided one custom folder that can be used to save new file copies or backups. If you needed to use a different folder, your previous folder would be replaced. Now the 5 most recently used folders are automatically saved in the app and you can switch between them easily.
- Frequently used folders in NXPowerLite Desktop 9
- Export your results:
- Now if you compress a batch of files you can choose to export the detailed results to a csv file. Helpful if you need to perform any follow up actions on files that didn’t compress etc.
- Export compression results in NXPowerLite Desktop 9
- Compress Microsoft Office files created by other apps:
- Although apps like Google Docs can save in the Microsoft format, they don’t always write files that conform explicitly to the documented standards. This can cause unpredictable issues with software like NXPowerLite, so earlier versions would skip these files to avoid any unfortunate accidents. Following extensive testing we are now satisfied that NXPowerLite can safely reduce them, so we’ve enabled compression for these files in version 9.
- Smaller Microsoft Office files:
- NXPowerLite can now further compress PNG images inserted into PowerPoint, Word and Excel files by reducing their color depth where possible. Many files containing PNGs are now likely to compress significantly more than before, in some cases files that could not be compressed at all by earlier versions can be reduced by 50% or more.
- Flatten embedded charts in DOCX and PPTX files:
- This is huge! When you insert a chart into PowerPoint or Word from Excel using the default paste option, you end up with a complete copy of the Excel file saved inside your presentation or document. This will happen again if you paste a second different chart in and so on. You can see this effect in the image below where 15 charts were added to a presentation from the same Excel file creating a 95mb PPTX file!
- The above presentation didn’t compress with version 8 but with version 9 can now be reduced to 166kb and the charts remain fully functional! This feature is on by default and can be enabled/disabled with the “Flatten embedded objects” checkbox in your PowerPoint or Word optimize profiles.
- Compress header and footer images in DOCX files:
- NXPowerLite couldn’t previously find images that had been inserted into either headers or footers of Microsoft Word documents as they were squirreled away in a super-secret internal location. So if you had heavy images like logos in headers or footers, chances are you would have been disappointed with the compression. Not anymore! NXPowerLite now finds these images and works its magic.
- Allow JPEG conversion:
- One way that NXPowerLite is able to compress files so much is finding images in other less-efficient formats and converting them to JPEGs. Sometimes however, the author wants to keep the images in their original format even if they would be smaller as JPEGs. Now it is possible to do that by disabling the Allow JPEG conversion setting in your PDF or Microsoft Office profiles.
- “I create presentations that are used throughout organizations, meaning that the slides get copied and pasted from one presentation into another many times, and thus saved over and over. JPEGs get degraded by PowerPoint’s compress pictures feature ?. So I use PNG. They’re bigger & bulkier but resist degrading.
- Updated PDF Library:
- We’ve replaced the version of the PDF library we use from Adobe and it has a host of low-level bug fixes, taking care of many known issues that occasionally cropped up with PDF files and thwarted our compression.
- Other UI improvements:
- In version 8 we added the option to replace the original file with a smaller compressed one without creating any additional files. To ensure people didn’t do this and then regret no longer having their original file(s) we added a warning to ask them to pause and think. Unfortunately, once you’ve thought about it once and understand how it works, being warned every time turned out to be annoying. Sorry about that... you can now turn it off here, or in Preferences.
- Replace original file warning dialog in NXPowerLite
- We reduced the minimum size of the application window, which had been creeping upwards over previous iterations. This had caused a handful of users problems if they had smaller screens, combined with using Windows zoom feature that blows up the display size of applications. This was cutting the rather important “Optimize” button off the bottom of the screen, which was extremely sub-optimal. That won’t happen now.
- We’ve simplified the Explorer right-click menu to just one sub-menu with all the options rather than three top-level options and three sub-menus. It’s just easier to understand and use.
- NXPowerLite Explorer right-click menu
- Dragging a file over NXPowerLite will now (when available) show you the thumbnail/icon and filename of the file you are dragging.
- The results screen used to have just a “Close” button, which took you back to the start screen. Now we’ve renamed this "Restart" and added a new "Exit" button, which completely closes the app with one click.
- The “Optimize” button now has focus so when you drag a file onto NXPowerLite you can immediately just hit Enter to start optimizing. Previously you would have had to move your mouse over to the optimize button and click again. It may seem minor but for some people this was a major source of aggravation.
New in NXPowerLite Desktop 5.0.2 (Feb 11, 2011)
- Compress PDF files:
- PDF is an incredibly popular format. According to Google, it's the most common file type on the Internet.
- But many PDF files contain unnecessarily bloated elements and large chunks of irrelevant data inserted by the software that created them.
- NXPowerLite can now remove bloat and redundant data from PDF files, compressing them by an average of 30-50%.
- Fully compatible with Office 2010:
- NXPowerLite can now compress files created using the latest version of Microsoft Office.
- A lot has changed 'under the hood' in Office 2010, and NXPowerLite has been optimized to make the most of these changes. We've tested NXPowerLite with thousands of Office 2010 files, to ensure that they are as small as possible and look identical to the originals.
- NXPowerLite is also fully integrated with Office 2010 applications (32-bit), so you can compress your files within PowerPoint, Word or Excel 2010.
- Ensure compressed files look amazing - even on large screens:
- Since NXPowerLite was first released in 2001, computer screens have got bigger and better. So we've changed NXPowerLite's default settings to reflect today's higher resolution devices.
- Now, you can be sure that your compressed files will look amazing, no matter how large your screen is.
- The new default settings mean that some files may be larger than if they had been compressed using previous versions of NXPowerLite. Learn how to replicate NXPowerLite's old default settings.
- Reduce JPEG file sizes without changing their dimensions:
- Older versions of NXPowerLite cut JPEG file sizes by reducing their physical dimensions. NXPowerLite can now compress JPEG files without resizing – so your files get smaller, not your images.
- It speaks your language:
- NXPowerLite is now available in twelve languages. So now even more people can reduce the size of their Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPEG and PDF files, wherever they are in the world.
- Currently supported languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
New in NXPowerLite Desktop 4.3.1 (Dec 21, 2010)
New in NXPowerLite Desktop 4.3 (Nov 30, 2010)
- Added support for Microsoft Office 2010
New in NXPowerLite Desktop 4.2.2 (Aug 2, 2010)
- Changed evaluation from 20 uses to 30 days
New in NXPowerLite Desktop 4.1.2 (Jun 2, 2009)
- Adds support for Outlook Express and Windows Mail
New in NXPowerLite Desktop 4.1.1 (May 5, 2009)
- Adds support for Outlook Express and Windows Mail
New in NXPowerLite Desktop 4.1 (Apr 28, 2009)
- Now optimises JPEG images and ZIP archives
- Improved user interface
- Simpler optimisation settings
- Adds support for Outlook Express and Windows Mail
New in NXPowerLite Desktop 4.0 (Apr 3, 2009)
- Now optimizes JPEG images and the contents of ZIP archives.
- Improved user interface.
- Simpler optimization settings.
- Better integration with email clients.
New in NXPowerLite Desktop 3.6 (Jun 12, 2008)
- Improvements to the optimization engine, for better compression
New in NXPowerLite Desktop 2.5 (Dec 14, 2006)
- Improved compatibility with Office 2007, simplified registration process
New in NXPowerLite Desktop 2.4 (Sep 25, 2006)
New in NXPowerLite Desktop 2.2.1 (Mar 20, 2006)
- Integration with Microsoft Outlook (Integrated Edition only),
- Support for Japanese and Spanish languages,
- Faster performance,
- Interface improvements.
New in NXPowerLite Desktop 2.2.1 (Mar 20, 2006)
- Integration with Microsoft Outlook (Integrated Edition only), Support for Japanese and Spanish languages, Faster performance, Interface improvements.