Introduction & Opening | WinZip Basics, Interface, & Wizard | Opening and Closing Archives
Creating Archives & Adding Files | Extracting and Creating Favorites
Viewing File Contents and Checkout | Outside Resources

Creating An Archive In WinZip:
Now that you have been introduced to WinZip and its interface, it is time to start learning it so that you can make it work for you. First, before you can start adding and zipping files, you must create an archive so that the files can be stored in it. To do that, you can do either one of the following:

1.) Click on the File Menu on the menu bar, and select New Archive, or
2.) Click the New Button icon along the toolbar.

At this point, you should see a dialog box appear that is similar to other Open File dialog boxes that you see in Windows applications. WinZip is like all of the Microsoft Office family of products in the sense that it is WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get).

In the New Archive dialog box, you will see a window with folders in it below a drop down menu that should have the name of the current directory your in. To the right of that drop down menu are four icons: an arrow pointing to the left, a folder with an up arrow, another folder with a little star in the upper right corner, and a table. Below is a description of what each one does.

· Left arrow-Sends you to the directory that you were last in.
· Folder with Up Arrow-Places you in the parent directory of the directory that you are currently in.
· Folder with Star-Creates a new folder for you.
· Table-Provides a drop down list of ways to view the contents of your current directory.

For the purposes of this tutorial, you will not need to use these features at the moment. Just go to the field that is labeled File Name, and type in a name for your file. Here, you should try to name the file in a way that will be helpful for you to remember since there will be times when you'll be looking for the archive on your computer or floppy disk, and need to access it quickly.

Below the File Name field, you will see a drop down menu labeled Files of Type. For the purpose of this tutorial leave that selection in the default state, or with the selection Zip Files chosen. This is so that when you create your archive, it will have a .zip extension. There are other options such as those for .exe and encoded files, but you do not have to worry about that right now.

Adding Files To An Archive In WinZip:
Now, you are ready to create your first WinZip archive. Click OK. At this point, you should see the Add File window. This only occurs when you first create the archive. Otherwise, you would use either the following steps to get the Add File window on your screen:

1.) Click on the Actions Menu, and Select Add, or
2.) Click on the Add Button in the toolbar.

With the Add File window currently on your screen, you will see a number of different buttons, icons, menus, and checkboxes to choose from. Some of these may be already familiar to you from when you first created your archive. In addition to those, there are several new ones. They include the following:

· Action-A drop down menu that selects what action to take when adding files. Actions include: Freshen existing files, Move and Replace files, and Update and add files.

· Compression-A drop down menu that gives choices for what kind of compression or packing you want to use for your archive. Choices include: Normal, Maximum (best available compression), Fast, Super Fast, or None.

· Multiple Disk Spanning-A drop down menu that allows you to span your archive over several floppy disks, or other removable media.

· Store Filenames in 8.3 Format-A checkbox that allows you to store the file names that you are adding in the old DOS filename format.

· Password-A button that allows you to password protect the files you are storing in your archive so that nobody else can access them.

· Add With Wildcards-A button that allows you to archive a group of files that have similar filenames by using such standard wildcards as * and ?

· Folders-A series of checkboxes that provide options for subfolders in your archive and a file's path information.

· Attributes-A series of checkboxes that provide options for the kinds of attributes you may want to assign to your archive.

To add a file or group of files to your archive perform the following tasks:

1.) Click on the Drop Down Menu in the top of the Add File window that is labeled Look in.

2.) Select the directory where the files that you want to archive are located.

3.) Select all the files that you want to add to your archive by using Click, Shift+Click, or Ctrl+Click.

4.) Once you have all the files that you want to archive selected, click on the Add Button in the lower right corner of the Add File window.

Upon clicking the Add Button, you will see a progress bar moving along the bottom of the main window in WinZip, and then the files you are archiving will appear in the Archive Window.

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