What’s new in NXPowerLite Desktop 11?
NXPowerLite Desktop 11 has just arrived with a brand-new file analysis tool that gives you detailed insights into your file sizes. We’ve also made sure that it delivers even better results! Files will shrink more effectively, and the engine has been fine-tuned to improve the quality of your output files too.
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New in this version:
View details
Compression engine updates
Custom resolutions
Windows 11 Explorer menu
User interface refinements
View details: Uncover compression roadblocks
Before NXPowerLite 11, diagnosing compression issues—especially for PDFs, Word, and Excel—was a challenge since our Slidewise tool only worked with PowerPoint.
NXPowerLite 11 solves this with a new built-in View details feature, giving you an instant, multi-format file size breakdown. 👇
This new feature, combined with our latest guides for manually reducing 'stubborn' content in each file format (linked from the the View details window & at the end of this blog post), give you all the information and instructions you should need.
Achieving your target file size should hopefully now be possible in almost every case.
Compression engine updates
This major upgrade brings substantial improvements in compression, broader file compatibility, and a host of other enhancements. These changes are all focused on delivering the highest quality compressed files while achieving the smallest possible size.
Key changes in version 11:
Compress pictures in cells (Excel)
Compress grouped images (Word)
Compress JPEG2000 images (PDF)
Fix compression of cropped + grouped shape fills (PowerPoint)
64-bit compression (All files)
Skip incompressible files (Excel)
Improved Compression for PNGs with Color Profiles (Office files)
Expanded coverage so more files get compressed (Office files & PNG)
Extensive bug fixes to improve coverage and quality (PDF, Office files)
Because many of these engine changes can result in substantial additional compression over older versions, NXPowerLite 11 will retry files that have previously been compressed with an earlier version to see if it can make them even smaller. It will only compress content that it couldn’t compress previously.
Full details of all of the engine updates are covered in detail on our blog in our version 11 engine update.
Custom resolutions
Event professionals and users working with non-standard screen sizes often need to target compression at custom resolutions not included in our default list. We're pleased to announce that NXPowerLite Desktop 11 now supports custom resolutions! Our thanks to Troy Chollar of TLC Creative for suggesting this feature.
How to set a Custom resolution:
Go to Edit > Manage profiles
Create a new profile or duplicate an existing one to use as a base
In the resolution dropdown, select Custom
Enter your desired width and height in pixels
Quick Tip: Once you've set a Custom resolution for one file type, subsequent file types will automatically populate the same details if you also select Custom for their resolution dropdown.
Windows 11 Explorer menu
NXPowerLite Desktop 11 now includes a native Windows 11 Explorer menu. Before, you had to hold down Shift + Right-click to get to the old menu, as earlier versions didn’t have a Windows 11 context menu option.
Plus, now you can right-click on a single PDF, PPTX, DOCX, or XLSX file and you will get the new View details feature. This lets you quickly see a file size breakdown without having to fire up the main NXPowerLite app.
User interface refinements
In version 11, we’ve made subtle but important UI refinements to give the application a fresher look and make it even easier to use, while keeping the familiar experience you expect from version 10.
On first impressions it may look very similar to version 10, and hopefully it will feel like everything is still where you expect it to be, but just a little easier and clearer to work with. For example, we’ve removed the labels from the main application dropdowns and tweaked built-in profile names to compensate (e.g., the profile name ‘Balanced’ is now ‘Balanced Compression’). This change reduces the amount of text you need to read when verifying your compression settings.
The command bar has been visually updated and now includes new options for opening a selected file or folder, as well as the “View details” button.
A key improvement is that the command bar buttons are now always visible, only becoming disabled when they are unavailable for use. In earlier versions, disabled buttons were hidden, which caused the other buttons to shift positions depending on the active options. This change ensures that the buttons remain in a fixed location, allowing you to quickly and easily find the features you need.
You might have to try really hard to spot some of the other changes, but trust us, they're there, and they should quietly make using NXPowerLite even better. We're really keen to hear what you think of the UI tweaks—good or bad—so please drop your feedback in the comments!
Summary
We are beyond excited to introduce the fantastic new "View details" feature in NXPowerLite Desktop 11! While we always aim to improve our compression magic and refine the user interface, this new addition goes far beyond our usual improvements.
Adding View details helps us achieve a major long-term goal: giving our users all the info and advice they need to tackle those tricky times when compression just isn't enough to get the file size down. We're really looking forward to seeing how much this new feature helps everyone out!
