I took at it as "no=I don't generally use it" and "never=I NEVER USE IT EVAR!"

-f0dder (April 26, 2007, 06:10 PM)

f0dder's interpretation of "No" and "Never" is correct. ;)   

(or if you want to support even really old quirky architectures, .tar.gz)

I use 7-Zip (the application) because it has proven reliable and fast for quite a while, and I use it constantly at work to sling files off to clients and fellow employees.

-Edvard (April 26, 2007, 06:19 PM)

Good point. The 7-Zip application and the .7z format are two separate issues.  I should have been more succinct with my question.

Thanks superboyac! I didn't want to be the only one going "Blue? What the hey does that mean?!"

-Darwin (April 26, 2007, 06:02 PM)

It's my favorite color. :P

You can add me to the long list of DO users that first learned about it on DC.

I'm not sure whether I'd prefer a special DC discount for the upgrade, or a 7-zip plug-in....Hmmmmm.  Scratch that, I would definitely prefer the 7-zip plug-in which has been talked about on the DO forum for a long time but never seems to go anywhwere.

I am glad to see that my initial inquiry has generated some good discussion but it has confused the heck out of me.  I have a significant quantity of large pdf's that I keep as permanent reference on my laptop that are indexed and searchable.  Since I spend a great deal of time on the road, I am highly sensitive to bloating the hard drive.

Many of the pdf's I keep on disk have been sent to me (created by other people) or downloaded from the net so I have little control over the fact that someone else was inefficient in creating the original PDF.

What I find so distressing is that my software tests gave exactly the opposite result that Darwin found.  In other words, my limited testing indicated that PdfCompressor 3.1 kicked butt, while PDF-DocPro was completely ineffective.  I will do some additional testing and report back.

On a related note, while I was searching for a program to compress large PowerPoint files, I came across another (more affordable) gem called NXPowerLite http://www.nxpowerlite.com/index.php?ld=n.  This program will dramatically shrink PowerPoint as well as Word documents.  What appeals to me most is that it retains the native file format (e.g. .ppt, .doc., .xls) so the file can be edited at a later date.