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I'm curious about the Nisus compressed rich text format--the .zrtf.

I see that Nisus opens it with no trouble, but is it best to leave it as it is? Or should it be unzipped and saved as a regular rtf or a document template? In this day of huge hard drives, is .zrtf worth using at all? Does it make any difference?

Robert Blade, Jacksonville, Fla.

robertb,

I can't answer the question for you, but I can give you more information on which to base your decision. Here's what we write about zrtf in the User's Guide"

in Formats of saved files:

Nisus Compressed Rich Text (a gzipped RTF) file to save space, with the extension “.zrtf”. This reduces the size of files that Nisus Writer Pro saves. No other application understands this format, but it reduces file size by a large amount. You can rename a file from “FileName.zrtf” to “FileName.rtf.zip” and the Finder will expand the file into a normal RTF file.

And pretty much the same information (in case you missed it the time around) in the Glossary of Useful Terms:

gzip
A widely supported compression/archive format. The new "Nisus Compressed Rich Text" format (file extension “zrtf”) is a way to reduce the size of files that NWP saves. It’s basically the normal Nisus Writer Pro RTF, zipped, and saved to disk. No other application will understands this, but it reduces file sizes by a large amount. However, in a pinch a user can rename a file from "whatever.zrtf" to "whatever.rtf.zip" and let the Finder expand it into a normal RTF file.

I hope that helps.

rmark wrote: [...]
Here's what we write about zrtf in the User's Guide"

in Formats of saved files:

Nisus Compressed Rich Text (a gzipped RTF) file to save space, with the extension “.zrtf”. This reduces the size of files that Nisus Writer Pro saves. No other application understands this format, but it reduces file size by a large amount. You can rename a file from “FileName.zrtf” to “FileName.rtf.zip” and the Finder will expand the file into a normal RTF file.

[...]

That normal RTF file cannot be read by other apps.
Only opening it and saving it in NWP allows other apps to read the file.

Hello.

Looks like the process as explained in the help needs a little explanation. I saved a file as .zrtf, then I changed its extension to .rtf.zip. Both Zipeg and Stuffit return a file that is apparently unreadable. Zipeg expands the file as [content], without an extension. Stuffit expands the file and retains the extension. However, when I change the extension back to .rtf NWP and Bean can open it. On the other hand Archive Utility, that can be accessed through the contextual menu, returns the original file with .rtf extension flawlessly. Finally, expanding a .zrtf file with Stuffit yields the original file without .rtf extension. Adding an .rtf will do the trick.
The process explained in the help file – .rtf.zip extension and Open With Archive Utility – behaves exactly the way it says. I think this is what the help file means when it says “ the Finder will expand the file into a normal RTF file.”

Henry.

My thanks to all of you for this additional testing. We'll expand on the explanation in a future edition of the User's Guide.

In addition to the compression that Mark mentioned, the Nisus Compressed RTF format also makes use of some other optimizations to reduce the file size.

For example, when you add an image to your document, the RTF for that image can be rather wasteful. RTF has an efficient solution: the "\bin" control. The problem is that not all applications support the "\bin" control (though Word has no trouble with it). We also use these sorts of legal/standardized techniques in the Nisus Compressed RTF file format.

For more on this, you might read this FAQ entry on file sizes, which talks more about images and how they are saved in RTF.