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

Extracting An Archive In WinZip:
After creating an archive, adding files to it, closing the archive, and opening it again, the next critical feature to learn in WinZip is to extract files from an archive, or the archive itself. To extract files in WinZip, you can do one of two things:

1.) Click on the Actions Menu, and select Extract, or
2.) Click on the Extract Button with the Folder icon with a blue arrow coming out of it with a file.

Now, you should see a window labeled Extract on your screen. In the Extract Window, you will see a drop down menu labeled Extract to. In that drop down menu, you should see a full path of a directory that you want to extract the file or files to.

To the right of the Extract to drop down menu, you will find two buttons. One is a blue arrow pointing downward, and the other is the familiar Create Folder icon. The blue arrow icon is for expanding a directory's tree structure. So, if you wanted to view the other subfolders within a directory, all you would need to do is click the blue arrow.

Beneath the Extract to drop down menu, you will notice a series of radio buttons for Files. These radio buttons represent options for how you would like to extract files from the archive. They are described below:

· Selected Files-If you want to select a certain number of files in the archive that you want to extract.

· All Files-If you want to extract all the files from your archive.

· Files-This has a field next to it for a specific file that you want to extract from your archive. This works best if you are sure that you know the exact name of the file you want to extract.

Beneath the set of radio buttons, there is a series of checkboxes, which provide additional options for extracting files from your archive. They include:

· Overwrite Existing Files-setting this option allows you to automatically overwrite a previous version of the file or files you are extracting from your archive.

· Skip Older Files-setting this option allows you to only extract the most recently modified files.

· Use Folder Names-setting this option allows you to use the full path names of the folders that the file or files originally came from.

· Open Explorer Window-setting this option makes WinZip open Windows Explorer to the directory that your file or files were extracted to.

To extract the files from your archive in WinZip, perform the following steps in the Extract Window.

1.) In the Extract to drop down menu, select the directory that you want to extract the file(s) to. Note: You may need to click on the C: drive in the Folders/Drives window to get yourself in the direction of the destination folder you want to extract to.

2.) Select the radio button with the appropriate File option that you want to use to extract your files.

3.) Then select the checkbox with the appropriate option from you wish to use when extracting your files so that the extraction is done in a way that is convenient to you.

4.) Click the Extract Button.

5.) Now, depending what options you selected for extracting your files, you may get an additional dialog box asking if you want to do something such as overwriting files. Once you understand what is being asked, click OK.

To check to see if the files you selected were extracted, go into Windows Explorer, and look in the directory you chose to extract the files to. If the files are there, or in most case, the most recent copies of the files are there, then you are done.

Creating A Favorite Zip Folder In WinZip:
Similar to the Favorites feature used in Web Browsers, WinZip has the ability of collecting of all of the archives you have on your hard drive, and storing them in one place so that you can access them quickly without having to go through dialog boxes and folders to get to it.

To use the Favorites feature, perform one of the following:

1.) Click on the File Menu, and select Favorite Zip Folders, or
2.) Click on the Favorites Button, which is the zippered up heart icon.

Upon performing these actions, you should see the Favorite Zip Folders window. In this window, there will be zip files listed with the following column headings listed above:

· Name-The filename of your zip archive.
· Modified-The date that your archive was last modified.
· Folder-The path where the file is located on your computer.

Below that you will see another File Type drop down menu. Leave this in the default state, which is Zip Files. Before going on any further, there are two particular buttons that you need to know. First, the Search button which is located on the right side of the Favorite Zip Folders window.

This feature allows you to search the contents of a particular drive, or all drives on your computer for zip archives. It then stores the results of the search into the Favorites folder. Below that is the Options button, which allows you to decide what archives should be in your favorites folder, and how you should be notified when an archive has been added.

Now, if there are now archives currently in your Favorites folder, then you have to add them. To do that, you do either of the following:

1.) Click the Search Button. Then, select the drives you would like to search for zip files in. Then, click the Open Button. You will be asked whether or not you want to add the archive to the Favorites folder. Click Yes.

2.) Click the Options Button. Click the Add a folder to the list. Select the folder that contains your archive from the directory structure.

Your folder should now appear in the list of Favorite Zip Folders.

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