re: I've never done that
If you have the same information in a text file and a binary file, then WinZip will create a the same size zip file from either one, even though there is a huge size difference between them.
I solved the problem a few minutes ago of converting an ascii text file to binary. In fact my program beat my reference binary files (created by a professional programmer) by reducing the ascii text file in size by a whopping 64% !!!!! That's 4% smaller than the reference files!!!!
(I am exuding pure delirious elation)