How do I resize jpgs in a batch when I zip

Hi all:

I have a very large (295mb) folder structure with information I wish to send by email. A very large part of the size of this is jpgs. Another good part is pdfs. The vast majority of the number files are docs, xlss, etc, which do not take up much space at all.

In the past, I have just zipped the whole thing, and sent it with Thunderbird and am now using the built in "yousendit" or "box". But even with this, it takes a "long" time to upload, and will take my recipient a long time to download as well. also, over 50mb, I need to use a "free trial" of the paid version.

Is there any "batch" software out there that will zip and resize this large folder all at the same time. Resizing just the jpg's would be fine. pdf's too would be great. I need the "output" file to include all the files in the same place in the folder structure, but with the jpgs replaced with smaller files. Ziping could be done at the same time, or as a 2nd step. I am not fussy on exactly how much the jpg's get reduced. 1:10 or 1:20 should work, to get the whole zipped folder under 50mb.

i could go in subfolder by subfolder and highlight and resize each of the groups of jpgs separately, but I would have to do that, perhaps, 100 times. An "overall batch" would be nice, if it exists.

thanks for your help.

naz

 

Don't know what you've been using, but have a look at http://www.majorgeeks.com/7-Zip_d4603.html

You can compress the folder, keep its structure and select various degrees of compression. Its free. Its good. Keep in mind that the super duper level of compression takes a bit more time than normal compression, but you can get the size of the thing down from what winzip would do...

While at the Major Geek page for 7Zip, click the Author: Igor Pavlov link to see some compression comparsions. just make sure your recipient has the software as well. Linux users can also open 7Zip files, they'll know what to do...

 

Hi cipher:

right. the zip programs do a great job of reducing the size of the doc, xls, and other files. But the jpgs and pdfs are already compressed on their own. They represent the vast bulk of the 290MB. So I zip to get a bit more space savings, and to turn the *whole* directory structure (100's of files) into 1 zip file. (This could be done after the fact.)

But I also need to *resize* the jpgs from say 1.2 MB each now, down to say 100 or even 25KB. They do not need to be great quality for my recipient.

Again, I don't think this downsizing can be done with pdfs, but if it can, I would be interested in that too!

Thanks,

naz

 

Greetings, bigcanuknaz...

IrfanView has a very good batch resizing routine. It's highly configurable and offers good quality for the price.

 

I have an old product, CVista PDF Compressor, that still works fine. I'll say that compressing PDF files went by the wayside when hard drives started getting larger and broadband became common. I mainly use it these days to add an OCR layer to PDFs I wish to make searchable. I find it a bit better than Acrobat. (another paid option that has PDF compression capabilities)

There is some, not a lot but some, loss of quality using this product which is not free.

Anyway, here is a link for you to peruse:

http://www.planetpdf.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=2062

This is the old press release, the links there will take you to the latest product.

 

I have PhotoFiltre and had never looked to see whether it can resize multiple image files at the same time but, after reading this forum discussion, I took a look for this feature and found that PhotoFiltre has it.

 

If you have office picture manager which is installed when office is. You can easy select a photo then right click - open with - office picture manager, then click view - thumb nail view, then select all, then right click edit picture, then click resize or even compress pictures, which ever works better for you, then it will apply that to all the photos, then click save and it will do all of em pretty easy for you.

 

One caveat should be mentioned here, and I believe it applies to office picture manager and PhotoFiltre. If you follow, for example, Colemanguy's procedure with office picture manager, you will overwrite the original files. So, if you want to keep the originals, be sure to choose a different folder during your save action for the resized images.

 

Hi all:

Thanks for all the posts and ideas. I am not sure, but from reading other threads, I think these programs will certainly take a group of selected jpg files *within* a folder, and batch process them to a smaller size.

What I want to do, is feed a program a directory structure with perhaps 50 folders in multiple levels, and 100's of files, some jpgs, some pdfs, and many docs and xls's.

I want to feed this mix in.

And I want exactly the same structure and files as the output. Except that the jpgs have decreased in size, to say 100kb.

Thanks Caliban. I saw irfanview in other threads. Can you confirm it will work across folders, preserving structure and will not choke on other file types, and just pass them through untouched?

Thanks cipher. If I need that pdf size reducer, that may well be worth paying for.

I think the other programs will *not* work across folders, or pass through non-jpgs. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I don't mind the overwrite, and that might be the best algorithm for this to work. Hmmmm... might be something like:
1. copy my folder including all subfolders and files (so the original is preserved)
2. unleash the program on the copy ("the folder and all sub-folders"), having all the jpgs replaced with smaller versions.
3. hopefully the program leaves all other files as is.

Maybe one of these programs will work.... Can anyone confirm. I will have to do some testing.

thanks,

naz

 

Good morning.

IrfanView cannot perform that way - sorry. I doubt that any of the other aforementioned graphics programs can do what you ask, either. You might try posting in the Programming forum with a question about your requirements - maybe some of the code gurus there can come up with some sort of batch routine that you may be able to implement (I know IrfanView has a lot of syntax commands that I have never used).

With IView, you must manually designate the files that you wish to resize - to make the task easier, I usually move files to a dedicated folder and then tell the batch to 'select all'. There are options for outputting to another folder, renaming the results, overwriting/replacing the originals (or not), etc.

Another cool option is the ability to delete the extraneous camera data from the picture file (such as EXIF, IPTC, XMP) and to adjust the JPEG quality. This procedure vastly reduces the file size without affecting the dimensions and visual quality of the picture.

 

Thanks again all, for your help.

I have the folder tree sent. I used a "box" free trial.

In windows, you can right click on a jpeg, and select "send by email." Win7 automatically notices that this is a large jpeg, and offers to resize it for you. It would be *awfully* nice (and probably not that hard to program), to be able to right click on a *folder*, (or perhaps zip), and select "send zipped folder" by email. and then have Win7 notice the big jpegs, and offer to resize. Then select "yes to all" and you are done.....

I can't believe, in this day and age, of sending large documentation files by email that I am the only one who would need this.

Believe it or not, I actually had my recipient say, "just burn it on a cd, and snail-mail it to me...." lol.

Again, thanks all.

naz

 

Maybe a quick email suggestion to a certain Mr. Gates in Redmond WA - hey, you never know...