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When it is necessary to archive P-CAD 200x (or ACCEL EDA) database files, many of us use pkzip which creates a very compact compressed zip file that we can then save off to our archive media, whether it be floppy diskette or whatever.
Sometimes it is also necessary to send this 'zipped' file across the network, to an associate for further editing, or viewing. This network might be company-wide or it might be the global internet.
It is important that whenever we archive our database that we create as small of an archive - or zip - file as possible. After all, the smaller the archived file, the less space it occupies on whatever media it is stored on - or transmitted through.
If all of this seems obvious and very mundane, well bear with me for a second or two. I will reveal a very useful tidbit that many of us never realized (myself included) until very recently.
Most of us who use P-CAD 200x (or ACCEL EDA) are aware that when we do file saves in schematic or PCB, we are able to choose between saving the file in P-CAD ASCII or binary format. The default is binary, and we will use this most of the time, as it is quicker to load and save our files in this format (it is also the default file-type). An interesting note... have you ever noticed that your P-CAD binary database files are almost always larger than their brothers, the P-CAD ASCII files? Why is this? (I don't know the answer... the question is supposed to make you go 'hmmm...'.)
Recently, I had the opportunity to receive an P-CAD 200x database file through the internet. It was zipped, and was a rather large file with a size of over 956k compressed, and over 2.5 Meg uncompressed.
Well, in the course of looking at this file, I saved it as an ASCII file (which created a file with a size of 2.4 Meg) and then decided at the end of the day to compress it and save it off to floppy. After I zipped the P-CAD ASCII version of the same database, the zip file occupied approximately 204k.
Wow!! This is quite a bit of difference! The P-CAD ASCII file is almost a 12:1 ratio
in compressed file size, versus a 2.7:1 ratio for the binary file.
So, the bottom line is, whenever you get ready to archive your schematic or pcb jobs,
or send someone a zip file of your database,
you should save them first as P-CAD ASCII. You will then be
able to fit more onto the media, or send less data over the internet.
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