When you have to share a group of files via email or upload them on the internet, you must never send them individually, but group them in a compressed (or zipped) folder which is also called an archive. The recipient can then unzip the archive by extracting the various files into a folder so that they can then be opened and viewed.
Zipping a folder means transforming it into a single Zip file whose size is more or less smaller than the sum of the files that was inside the folder.
The Zip file format has always been the most used to compress and store data on a computer and works very well with image files, documents, videos and audio files.
For example, if you had 50 Word documents in a folder that have a total size of 5 MB, you can compress the entire folder into a single zip file that can be 1 MB or less in size, much faster to send and share online.
Whoever opens the Zip file can unzip the zip file documents into a folder on his computer without absolutely any loss of quality of the same.
Even if there are many programs to compress and decompress files and folders, in Windows you can zip a folder with an already integrated function, even if a little hidden.
It is possible to compress one or more files of a folder in the following way: select the file or files (to select multiple files at a time, hold down the CTRL key while clicking each in turn.), Then press the right mouse button on one of these, go to Send to: Compressed folder .
Windows automatically creates a zip file with the name of the last selected file and gives the possibility to rename it immediately.
If you want to zip a whole folder, right click on it, go to Send to: compressed folder .
The created Zip file can then be sent to anyone who can then open it and extract the files from it always without using an external program.
To decompress the Zip file, simply press on it with the right button and choose the " Extract all " option.
Zip files can also be updated by adding other files to them, simply by dragging them into the folder window.
If you want more options and to open files compressed in other ways (with a format other than the .zip) you must instead install a different program, such as Winzip or, better yet, like 7Zip which opens each ZIP, RAR or other file universal and which, being open source, remains free and free forever.
7zip adds an entry to the Windows context menu to add the selected files to an archive that can then be compressed more than Windows would normally and with the possibility of protecting that zipped folder with a password, impossible to discover (if you use AES encryption -256).
As written in another article, RAR archives and ZIP files can be created and decompressed through web applications such as B1 Archiver and EzyZip.
