Zipping And Unzipping Zip Files
One of the most fundamental aspects of digital scrapbooking is being able to unzip the files you download. Read on to find out how to zip and unzip zip files.
Creating and Extracting Zip Files
In digital scrapbooking there are many occasions where you might have to deal with creating and extracting (opening) zip files.
Most digital scrapbook kits you download, whether you buy them or whether they are freebies come in zipped files. Zip files are normally a way of compressing files to keep down the size of them as well as keeping them together in a single file rather than several separate ones. With graphic files, zips do not normally reduce the file size much, if at all, however they are a very good way of keeping a collection of files together to enable easier downloading and uploading on the web.
Windows XP now provides it’s own zipping facilities, but if you do not have Window’s XP there are several zipping programs out there, such as WinZip or WinRar (which has the ability to compress in various file types such as Zip and Rar).
For the purpose of this tutorial, since most people tend to use Windows XP we will explain how to zip and extract files with Windows XP.
Extracting Zip Files
Firstly open Windows Explorer
Start> All Programs> Windows Explorer
Locate the zip file you wish to extract the files from and right click on the file. From the menu that is displayed, choose Extract All
The Windows extraction wizard will open. Click on Next to continue and you will come to the window below.
Here can select a destination for the files to be extracted to. You can click browse to find a folder on your hard drive, or type the path of where you want the files to be extracted to. The default is a folder named the same as your zip file, usually in the folder the zip is contained in.
If you are happy to have your files extracted to the default directory and folder, click on next to continue.
This completes the extraction of your files, check the box next to ‘Show extracted files’ if you wish to have a window open showing the extracted files.
Note: Double clicking on a zip file will show you what is inside the zip file but will not extract them.
Creating a Zipped File
Firstly open Windows Explorer
Start> All Programs> Windows Explorer
Add all the files you wish to zip into a folder. Right click on the folder and choose Send to> Compressed (Zipped) Folder, from the menu that appears.
Your zipped file will appear beneath the folder you right clicked on.
Your zipped files are now ready to upload to the web, send to someone else or do what you will with!
This article is © Robyn Gough (clikchic) 2007
All Rights Reserved
Not to be reproduced without express written permission
