Nowadays, a lot of computer users like to share files with their friends, especially pictures, music and video. I am sure you do that too. The most common ways to share files are sending them as attachments in e-mail, uploading them to file sharing websites and tranfering them in pendrives. However, I am sure you may face the following problems.
1. The file size is larger than the maximum file size for e-mail attachments. Therefore, the file cannot be sent as attachment in e-mail.
2. The file size is larger than the maximum file size for uploading. Therefore, the file cannot be uploaded to file sharing websites.
3. The file is very large, causing the time to send, upload and download the file to be very long.
4. The file is too large to be saved in pendrives.
5. The file saved in the pendrive uses up a lot of disk space of the pendrive.
6. You want to share a folder that contains many files, but usually it is not possible to send or upload a whole folder.
To solve the problems above, it is quite simple. You just have to zip or compress the file. After zipping it, the file size will be much smaller. A zip folder that contains many files can easily be sent and uploaded. Computers with Windows XP or later have a file zipping feature that allows you to zip files.
To zip a file, just right click on the file, select 'Send to' then click 'Zipped (Compressed) Folder'. The file will be zipped and the zipped file will be saved in the same folder. The zipped file will have the same name as the original file. To zip more than one files, press and hold 'Ctrl' key, select the files you want to zip, right click, select 'Send to' and then 'Zipped (Compressed) Folder'. The zipped folder will be saved in the folder that contains all the original files. The name of the zipped folder is the same as the folder that contains all the original files. When files are zipped, the original files are not deleted, changed or moved.
A zip file or zip folder that contains all the original files is known as a zip archive or compressed archive. To open a zip archive, just double click on it and you can see all the original files. You can open them but not change or modify them. Also, if there is a program in it, the program may not work correctly.
To edit files in a zip archive or to use programs in a zip archive, you have extract or unzip it first. To extract all the files in a zip archive, just right click on it and select 'Extract to'. Choose a location to save the extracted files. To extract just a few but not all the files in a zip archive, first open it, press and hold 'Ctrl', select the files you want to extract, then right click and select 'Extract to', finally choose a location to save the extracted files. The extracted files are exactly the same as before they were zipped. When a zip archive is extracted, the zip archive is not changed, deleted or moved.
The file zipping feature in Windows only allows you to create, open and extract zip archives in .zip format. If you often zip files, then you can download 7-Zip or WinRar to use. They allow you to add files to a zip archive, split a zip archive, set password for a zip archive, create a self extractor, use software in a zip archive without extracting and much more, besides creating, opening and extrating a Zip archive. 7-Zip and WinRar are also more convenient to be used. You can download them from the following websites:
7-Zip: http://www.7-zip.org/download.html
WinRar: http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm
Zip archives created using Windows are in .zip format. Besides .zip , there are many other formats for zip archives such as .rar , .zipx , .7z and many more. You can only open zip archives with those formats using 7-Zip or WinRar. To ensure that you can open and extract all kinds of Zip archives, you should have both 7-Zip and WinRar installed. Besides that, 7-Zip allows you to create Zip archives in both .7z and .zip format, while WinRar allows you to create Zip archives in both .rar and .zip format.
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