XnView Software

I am new to this program and can not find any instructions as how to use it or any kind of help file. Am I missing something?
I am a member of several Forums which restrict the size of any attachments to be added. If I use my scanner to enter information, such as schematics, or hand drawn sketches, it always produces a file that exceeds the maximum allowed by the Forum.
Using XnView, how do I reduce my files which are in excess of 250KB to something smaller without losing too much detail? I am not sure which of the commands to use to accomplish my goal, do I use dimensions or pixel size? Any comments or help is appreciated.

Bloomb wrote:I am new to this program and can not find any instructions as how to use it or any kind of help file. Am I missing something?

XnView is the work of one person -- XnView -- and is made available as freeware software, and as is so often the case documentation and support is limited. There is some limited documentation available, I believe, but in general the best solution is probably to explore the menus and to experiment. The forum has a fairly powerful search facility and you can also, of course, post questions on the forum, preferably fairly specific.

Bloomb wrote:I am a member of several Forums which restrict the size of any attachments to be added. If I use my scanner to enter information, such as schematics, or hand drawn sketches, it always produces a file that exceeds the maximum allowed by the Forum.
Using XnView, how do I reduce my files which are in excess of 250KB to something smaller without losing too much detail? I am not sure which of the commands to use to accomplish my goal, do I use dimensions or pixel size? Any comments or help is appreciated.

The first approach perhaps is to ensure that the files you wish to attach are optimally compressed, depending on the file format. Do you need any help there?

For further reducing file size the answer might be to downsample the images and check the file size and quality obtained. You can do that using XnView's Image > Resize... :
Setting the screen size to 50% as shown will halve the pixel dimensions of the image, and selecting 'Maintain ratio'' saves time as one dimension can be changed and the other automatically adjusts. The optimum resampling method for downsampling may depend on the image.

cday, Thanks for your reply, I understand. I thought maybe there was a Help File somewhere that I missed. Your sample gives me some help, I can try to work with that and see if it accomplishes what I want.

The first approach perhaps is to ensure that the files you wish to attach are optimally compressed, depending on the file format. Do you need any help there?

Yes, please. I am a complete novice in this field. My scanner produces .JPG files, how do I compress those? Thanks.

Bloomb wrote: I thought may be there was a Help File somewhere that I missed.

I think there may be, but I don't immediately know where, and as XnView has evolved over the years I suspect that it would be of limited use!

If your files are JPEGs there may be considerable scope for further compression, depending on the level of compression currently used. Open the images in XnView, then select File > Save as... , set the file type to JPEG, then click on 'Options' immediately below at bottom left.
[Use the scroll bar to the immediate right of the above image to scroll down the image if necessary.]

Then, in the right pane of the Write tab, use the slider to set the 'Quality' to a lower value, click 'Save' and then check the size and quality of the resulting image.

Whether JPG is actually the optimum file type for your images is another question if they are schematics: if they are black and white TIFF with CCITT G4 compression might be much smaller, and if they are colour but with a small number of colours, one of the PNG options might be much smaller, and both formats also provide lossless compression, unlike JPEG.

Using the above information you may well be able to avoid the need to downsample your images.

Edit: I have given instructions for XnView but now see that you have posted in the XnConvert section, are you using hoping to batch convert using that software? The concepts above will in any case be similar. XnView also provides batch conversion at Tools > Batch Processing... .

cday wrote: Edit: I have given instructions for XnView but now see that you have posted in the XnConvert section, are you using hoping to batch convert using that software? The concepts above will in any case be similar. XnView also provides batch conversion at Tools > Batch Processing... .

My ignorance will show here. I did not know where to post the question, I just wanted to know in general how to reduce the size of a .JPG file to be able to post it in a forum which restrict the file size when used as an attachment. No batch process involved, just as a "do-it-as-you-go" process when the file turns out to be to big to be used.

It seems that you have given me the answer. Thank you.

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XnTriq ([url=http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?p=70265#p70265]Unpunctual resizing[/url]) wrote:

• Smaller image has same file size
• Bigger file size as the original image
• can you shrink a picture file size?
• Resizing image results in larger file
• FAQ: How to reduce an image's file size?

• FAQ: How to get and install the Online Help document (linkrot/outdated)
• XnView Help document in the Web (linkrot/outdated)
• Wiki: XnView (Windows) User Guide
• http://download.xnview.com/
  • help-en.zip (English)
  • help-fr.zip (French)
  • help-de.zip (German)
  • help-pl.zip (Polish)
  • help-ko.zip (Korean)