Friday 27 April 2012

Zip, Unzip it! - How to compress files

Zip, unzip it! – How to compress files
There are two possibilities to compress files on windows. You could use a third party program or the already implemented compression tool of Windows. Since Windows XP it is possible to create compressed zip-files.
Compressing files has many advantages. First of all it could safe your space and time e.g. when you transfer couple of files over the internet or to your USB flash drive. You could also split large files into small pieces or protect them with a password. Downloadable programs are sometimes offered as compressed files to have safe traffic over the internet. The most common ending for a compressed file is “.zip” due to the fact, that Windows is using this format to compress files, so when you use a different compression tool you should always take care about the recipient of the compressed file, because not every person has installed a third party program which supports multiple formats such as “.rar” or “.7z” formats. 

So, but how do we compress files with Windows 7? It’s pretty easy:
1.       right click on the file
2.       go to the option “send to” and
3.       select “Compressed (zipped) folder”,
That’s it! You now have a new file which can be renamed. Double-click on that file which will open the explorer and show your compressed file. If you would like to compress a couple of files you can select them all and then repeat the tutorial or put them together into a folder and compress the folder.

Extracting a compressed Zip-file can be also done in four steps
1.       right click on the file
2.       go to the option “extract all” – a new window opens
3.       select the destination where to extract you files and
4.       then click “Extract”
By default the destination of your extracted files is the same place where your compressed file is located.
Here are two additional video tutorials which show how to zip or unzip with Windows 7 in less than a minute.

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