What is file compression?
Have you ever seen a zip file? A single file that ends in .zip or has an icon of a box with a zipper on it or something like that?
A zip file is a single file that can contain many files and folders organized within it. It is also often uses file compression in order to save space on your hard drive. There are many types of files like this: Zip, 7z, war, rar, tar.gz, cab, to name a few. But most often, no matter what type they are usually just referred to as zip files.
Why do you want to zip files up?
- Convenience. It is way easier to download, upload, or attach a single file to and email than many files and it saves time.
- Space saving. Compressed files take up less space and since they are smaller they will download faster. If your Internet provider has a data limit, zipping up files before sending them will help keep you under that data cap.
- Organization. Using a zip file is an easy way to keep like or related things all in one place.
- Archiving. Lets say that you have around a hundred or so digital pictures you’d taken on your vacation to Ireland. Zip ’em up all together so you can call on those original pictures later when you want to relive the experience.
- Data moving. On of the simplest ways to back up your files and move them to a new computer is to zip them up and copy them over. Once you have that zipped up data on your new PC simply unzip it and there you have all of your files. Easy!
What are some common formats?
Zip is not the only compression format out there in the wild. There are many others too like : rar, war, cab, 7z tar.gz to name just a few. Some types can compress your file more than others. Some can compress large amounts of data and allow them to span multiple zip files of a maximum size that you specify. Some even allow you to protect the archive where you can only unzip them if you supply the password.
What do you use to zip stuff?
Windows
Windows includes the ability to open, create and extracts files from zip files.
There are other formats aside from zip that can be used. If the included archive support doesn’t do it for you can try Winzip for zip files Winrar for rar type archives or my favorite 7zip which handles zipping and unzipping multiple formats and does it very well and includes its own 7z format.
Mac OS X
Most often when using OS X I’ve seen zip and tar.gz (a.k.a. a tarball) used. Mac includes the ability to open, create and extract files from zip and tar.gz files via finder. But it also includes command line tools for you shell nerds out there. Being the geek that I am, most often I use tar with gunzip at the command line to create a tar.gz file (a.k.a tarball). Or the zip and unzip commands to you guessed it create a zip file (zip command) or extract files from a zip file (unzip command).
Linux
Archive Manager included in LinuxMint Linix distros will have a GUI archive tool. The distro I use, LinuxMint, uses one called Archive Manager. It does a great job of opening zip files. But just like with OS X you can also use the shell to create and extract from your zip or tar.gz files. I’ve noticed on some Debian based distros zip and unzip is not always included by default but easy to install (apt-get install zip unzip).
What have we learned?
So that is a quick run down of what compressed files are and some good reasons to use them. Whether you want to reduce the size of your email, organize, backup, save on your mobile data limit, whatever. Which is your favorite file compression format? Which programs do you prefer. Drop us a line and let us know all about it.
Talk to you next time at The Nerd Garden!
Recent Comments