TIP: Shrink file size for sharing

Dec 03, 2003 4 Replies

I know a lot of you might already know this but it might be new stuff for some of you. I just did a test on one of my assemblies.



Original size (on disk) of the folder containing only this assembly (as well as the parts that make it up) is 23.8 Mb. I then performed Ecosqueeze (a wonderful little program that can be found at

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on this folder . Make sure you check "Remove Solidworks preview image" as well as "Remove Solidworks display list" and start. Folder size shrank to



8.23 Mb.

After that, I compressed the folder using Winrar (which can be found at

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From my experience Winrar usually compresses more that Winzip. Guess what... file size shrank to 2.22 Mb.



This could make your project much easier to share by e-mail...



Hope this helps a few



Pascal Dufour


Remember though if you are sharing a model with SW for tech support that doing this will remove data that SW uses to figure out what went wrong in a file.

"Pascal Dufour @cableamos.com>" I know a lot of you might already know this but it might be new

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Thanks for pointing this out Corey,

This is something I didn't know.

Have a nice day

Pascal Dufour

"Corey Scheich" wrote in news:bql0up$241nir$ snipped-for-privacy@ID-200385.news.uni-berlin.de:

To bring a file size down, try extruding a box around all geometry. Then save it. Or suppress all features. Those 2 options will bring the file down and you won't lose the important data.

Regards, Scott

"Pascal Dufour @cableamos.com>" Thanks for pointing this out Corey,

FYI - thats sort of what ecosqueeze does, without extra geometry (the box) to confuse people downstream. The big part of the file is the 'display list, which is that 3-D preview that allows you to see the model in the SWx viewer. Extruding a box makes for a simple display list=small size. Ecosqueeze just deletes the display list outright. Note: either way, your image in the viewer is munged.

But your point is well taken - if you have to share with SWx, the box will theoretically retain all thedata they need to save a corrupt file. That is, if you can open the file to extrude the box in the first place!

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