Perhaps you've encountered this situation; An important Excel file you’ve been using for several weeks has been growing steadily, but you haven't paid attention. You make the last revisions and start to save the file. Suddenly, a message pops up and says the disk is full! In a cold sweat, you ferret around for a blank disk, perhaps even throwing yourself upon the mercy of fellow office mates in your quest for magnetic Manna from Heaven.
Most of the other options don't seem too rosy. You could use Excel's delete function to clear away some other expendable files from the disk. Or you could carefully archive and back-up old files so that only a few key documents remain on the disk when you start work. Wouldn't it be simpler if Excel files were just smaller?
With MacSQZ, your files can be as much as 85% smaller. The best part is that once you set up MacSQZ, it works like a silent partner and installs itself only when you need it. If MacSQZ provided only file reduction, it would be a valuable asset. But it also provides passwords for file security and a way to attach notes to a file each time you save it with MacSQZ.
MacSQZ is actually a family of related software. You install the MacSQZ DA and drag an Init file into the System folder. If you have room on the disk, copy MacSQZ Tools onto it too. MacSQZ Tools lets you alter the default settings of your MacSQZ installation.
Finally, the MacSQZ kit contains Apple File Exchange, which allows you to "batch squeeze" and “batch unsqueeze" files and to convert files such as the ones created with Lotus Symphony to squeezed files compatible with Excel.
To complete the installation process, reboot your Mac. Selecting the MacSQZ DA on the desktop produces a message informing you that it’s needed only when you're running Excel.
The MacSQZ DA is used to change the squeezing options of a particular file or all subsequent files that you save while in Excel. If the first thing you do every session is change the squeeze settings, use the Tools to change the default settings to save a step in the future. You also use the Tools to review the "audit trail" of attached notes for your squeezed files.
The save settings include several options to control how tightly compressed the files should be. By saving your files with empty cells blanked and excluding the calculated value of all excluding the calculated value of all formula cells, you can achieve 85% reduction with many of your files. I had no difficulty reducing the 30K sample file to 11K (63%) using more lenient settings. Once you save a squeezed file, the document is no longer really in the Excel format. You can tell this first because the icon of a squeezed worksheet is shorter than that of a regular Excel document. MacSQZ also appends a ! character to the end of the name of each file you compress so that you can distinguish the files from regular Excel files.
If you double-click a squeezed document, the Tools application cleverly hands off the file to Excel so that the result seems nearly the same as double-clicking a regular Excel file. You need Tools on the disk to do this, though. Without Tools, you’ll get the message “An application can't be found to open this document.”
As files unsqueeze, you’ll see an animated cursor in the shape of an expanding document. Although it’s true that squeezed files open more slowly than noncompressed documents, the time penalty is not severe. In fact, performance is surprisingly fast.
MacSQZ's shortcomings are that it comes in several parts, and those parts aren’t seamlessly integrated. You can’t inspect the audit trail of a squeezed file while you’re still in an Excel session. MultiFinder solves the problem, but depending on your System configuration, MacSQZ may not work with MultiFinder. Turner Hall promises a fix for full MultiFinder compatibility in the next version.
In short, MacSQZ is a set of tools that do an exceptionally good job of reducing the amount of space taken up on your disk by Excel files. At the same time, MacSQZ doesn’t require a lot from you and gets out of the way when it’s not needed. 1 only wish all software could make that claim.
Benjamin, Louis E., Jr. (August 1988). MacSQZ! MacUser. (pgs. 92, 94).
Synex Systems Corporation
Applications
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2023-01-07 / 
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MacSQZ_1.01.hqx
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Mini vMac
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