How to create ZIP (and other) archives.

Storing your data (files) in archives basically serves two main purposes: to save disc space by compressing the data (f.ex. very large backups) and to pack several different files into one archive file, so it can be easily made available for download (f.ex. software scripts, tutorials, etc ..)

There are dozens of different archive formats, being .zip the most popular format. Here is a quick overview of some different archive types that are supported by the free archiving tool IZArc:

ZIP: very popular, can be used to group files and also compress them. Large ZIP archives can also be split up in multiple smaller files in order to be archived or distributed on multiple disks / CD ROMs, etc ..
TAR: can only be used to group files and does not provide file compression.
CAB: Microsoft cabinet archive format - provides file compression and grouping.
RAR, ARJ, ARC, ..: older formats that provide compression and file grouping.

You can use IZArc to create archives in the following formats: ZIP (.zip), TAR (.tar), TAR-GZIP (.tar.gz), 7-ZIP (.7z), Cabinet (.cab), JAR (.jar), LZH (.lzh), YZ1 (.yz1), BlackHole (.bh), BGA (.bza) and BZIP2 (.tar.bz2)

In this lesson you will learn how to use IZArc to create a new zip archive from any files you like and also how to add more files to an already existing zip archive.

I´ll use my blogging video tutorial as example again. This tutorial contains a lot of files (images, webpages, videos, ..) organized in lots of different subfolders as you can see in the screenshot below.

The quickest and easiest way to create a new archive is to right click on a file (if you only want to archive a single file) or on a folder (to archive the entire content of this folder and its subfolders, preserving the folder tree structure) and then select the option IZArc » Add to filename.zip. IZArc automatically suggests the name of the selected folder / file as filename for the zip archive and will use the default settings to create the archive.

Alternatively you may also select the option IZArc » Add to Archive File ... if you want to enter a different name for the archive file and set some options first.

You will then see a new dialog window where you can select a target folder on your computer´s; hard drive, enter a filename for the archive, select the archiving type (f.ex. zip), etc ... As "action" for creating a new archive you should either select "Add" (this option will copy the selected files to the archive) or "Move" (this will move the files to the archive, deleting them from their old location). You can also enter a password if you want to restrict the access to the content of your archive. Press the Add button in the top right corner to create the archive.

Adding more files to an existing archive

Once you have created an archive file, you can always add more folders and files to this archive later. By default, the new files that you add to an existing archive will be added to the root folder inside this archive.

Therefore, if you have added more files to a subfolder and want to add these to the archive into the appropriate subfolder, then you would have to repackage everything starting from the parent folder in order to get the new files added to the correct location.

If that sounds confusing to you, watch the video and you will understand it.

Deleting individual files / folders from an archive

You can delete individual files or folders from an archive without having to delete the whole archive. Simply use IZArc to browse within the archive, select the files and/or folders that you want to delete, "right click" and choose the option "Delete"

Updating / overwriting files in an existing archive

To update the files inside an archive, simply proceed in the same way as you would when adding files to an existing archive. IZArc will then ask if you want to rename the existing files in the archive which were not changed since the last archiving - select No to all. IZArc will also ask if you want to overwrite the files that have been changed - select Yes to all.