WinZIP

The steps outlined below use version 8.1 of WINZip WINZIP desktop icon

to illustrate the zipping and unzipping process. The latest version is 9.0. If you do not already have WINZip, you can download it from the WINZip site.

If you want to take advantage of files available on the Internet, you have to understand how to handle files that are compressed. When you see a file with a name such as "abcxyz.zip", the ".zip" part of the name -- the filetype -- indicates that this is a compressed file, that is, one that is smaller in size than the original version. (A "zipped" file is only one kind of compression, but it is a very popular method and it's the one we explain here.) To use the file, you need to UNZIP the file and restore it to its original size. A "zipped" file, might actually include many files all combined into one single compressed file. In this case, when you unzip the file, you extract ALL the files that were stored in that compressed file.

Files are generally compressed to save both space and time. It saves space because a compressed file takes up less storage space on a hard drive. It saves time, because if you wish to SEND THIS FILE over the Internet, every byte in the file takes time to send, so reducing the number of bytes in a file that is transferred over the Internet reduces the time it takes to send that file. Would you rather wait 5 minutes for a file to download or wait 15 minutes?

Most of you may only need to unzip a file. However, there may be times when you need to zip a bunch of files as well. (If you wanted to send me 10 songs for the performer's page, it would be much easier if you could put them all into a single zip file, wouldn't it?) I'll explain first how to Zip a set of files and then show you how to take that zip file and extract files from it. I am using the version 8.1 of WinZip for these examples, but the steps will be essentially the same if you happen to have an earlier version.

As a real world example, I will show you how to compress 10 files on a floppy drive into a single compressed file. Consider the directory shown here. I have 10 midi files on drive A. They vary in size from 22 KB to 48 KB. Together, all 10 take up 296 KB of disk space. Let's create a single zip file containing all of these midi files.

If you have a version of WINZip, you will have an icon somewhere on your desktop like this one. Double - click the icon to run the WINZip program.

Note: If you are using the evaluation version, when the program launches, it will remind you that this is just an evaluation version. Just click on the "I Agree" box, and continue from there.

When you start the WINZip utility, the first thing you have to indicate is whether you want to create a "New" zip file or whether you want to "Open" a file that is already created. If you selected "Open," then you would be prompted to identify the file you want to open. In this case, we will be selecting "New" to indicate that we are creating a zip file that doesn't yet exist.

You are presented with the "New Archive" input box. First, decide what drive (and perhaps folder) you want to put this new file in. You use the drop-down arrow for the "Save in" box to locate the appropriate drive. In this case, I am going to put the zip file on the floppy drive right where the midi files are, so I have the 3 1/2 floppy (A:) selected.

Next, you need to create a file name. I have entered the name "JWSongs" in the "File name:" input box. The ".zip" extension will be added automatically. Now press "OK".

After you click OK, you are taken back to the main WINZip screen shown in Step 2 above, but now the "Add" option is enabled. Since that is what you want to do, click on it and you will be presented with the "Add" screen shown here.

Now you need to locate the files that you want to add. For the "Look in" box, I still have Drive A indicated since that is where the files are. The contents of Drive A are shown in the big file listing box. By default, the "File name:" box has "*.*" entered. The asterisks are wildcards and mean "any". So, *.* means any filename with any filetype. In this particular case, all the files showing are exactly what I want to copy, so the default wildcard specification is just what I want. If I simply click on the "Add with wildcards" button, all the files will be added.

If I just wanted to add some of the files, I would highlight the files I want and then click on the "Add" button.

You are now back at the main WINZip screen and it shows you all the files that are in the WINZip file. Notice the heading shows the filename "JWSongs.ZIP". You will also see how much the files were compressed. Zipping the files reduced the number of bytes by at least half and, in some case, almost by a third. That's it. We're done. You can just close the WINZip program.

If we examine Drive A at this point, we will see the original 10 midi files, plus the zipped file we just created. The new zip file is only 121 KB as compared to the 297 Kb of the 10 original files.

Well, now that we have created this ZIP file, let's see how to extract files from a ZIP file. There are a number of ways you could go about this. As mentioned above, you could launch the WINZip program and instead of selecting "New", select "Open" and then locate this particular file to Open. When you did that, the "Extract" option would be viable and you could select it. You could get also just double-click on the filename itself and, since the file extension is ".ZIP", this would automatically launch WINZip and load this file into it.

I'll discuss the WINZip extraction options in a bit, but first I want to show you the easiest way to handle the extraction. Just highlight the zip file you are interested in. Do not double-click or try and launch it, only click once to highlight it. Then go on up to the File menu, and click there.

The File drop-down menu shows a WINZip option. Move your cursor over that option and another drop-down menu appears showing various WINZip extraction options. In the example shown here, I've chosen to "Extract to folder A:\JWSongs". In effect, this option creates a folder with the same name as the ZIP file and puts it in the same directory as that zip file is currently in. My zip file is on Drive A, so the folder will be put on Drive A.

"Extract to here" would extract all the files, but not put them in a separate folder. "Extract to..." would let you specify where to extract them to.

Windows file directory showing new folder

With the option I selected, the files were extracted to a folder on the A drive. The figure here shows the A Drive directory (after I deleted all the original files).

If you were to open that JWSongs folder, all the files would be there, extracted from the zip file and expanded to their original size.

As mentioned above, if you were to open a zipped file from WINZip, and select Extract, you would be presented with an Extraction Options screen as shown below:

You need to indicate where you want to put these files by selecting the Drive and folder in the "Extract to:" box. If you click on the little drop down arrow at the far right of the input box, you see the path to folders that you have recently visited with WINZip. You can select the appropriate drive and folder by clicking in the "Folders/drives" box. Note that bigger downward curving arrow to the right of the "Extract to.." box. If you click on that arrow, it immediately takes you in the Folders/drives box to the path currently indicated in the Extract to.. box. For example, if I had a path showing like this: "C:\WebSiteFiles\Artists\Alex", then clicking on that downward pointing arrow would immediately move the selection point to the "Alex" folder, at which point I could move it from there. Sometimes, this is easier then clicking through a bunch of nested folders to get to where you want to go.

Also notice the "New Folder" icon next to this arrow. Wherever you are pointed, if you click on this, you can use it to create a new folder and then extract your files to this folder. In the "Files" box, you can choose to extract "All Files" or, if you have highlighted just one or more files, you would choose "Selected Files." When you've got the place for these to go specified correctly, just click on the "Extract" button and your files will be extracted.