How to compress files

While sending files over email, click the files that need to be transferred and hence, compressed into a transferable size. Drag these files onto a new folder. Select the ‘Send To’ option from that bar that comes after right-clicking on the folder. After you select the destination as ‘Compressed (zipped) Folder’, a dialog box appears that shows you the progress arte and speed of compression. After successful compression, one should use the folder (with the extension .zip) as an attachment to the mail, and send it normally.

If one uses a Windows Set-up, files that are existent on NTFS volume could also be compressed to facilitate storage economy and faster retrieval. From the ‘My Computer’ explorer window, select the folder/folders that need compressing. Right-clicking on the folder would reveal the tab ‘Properties’. After clicking that tab, click ‘Advanced’ on the ‘General’ tab. Select the Compress contents to save disk space check box, and then click ‘OK’. Click ‘OK’ from the properties interface box to exit the dialog box. Lastly, selecting the desired option in the ‘Confirm Attribute Changes’ menu to effect the compression. It is to be remembered that on transferring, pasting or moving files to a compressed folder, the files themselves get compressed. This procedure is an extremely effective, economical and fast process to compress files without involving third-party software. Also there is the added cushion of restoring the system to an earlier state and undoing any possible damage while compression.

Other than the above methods, files could also be compressed using powerful compression programs like WinRAR, WinZip, and 7-Zip and Daemon tools. The advantages of using new age programs like daemon tools are that it lets us store the files as a ready-to-burn image (ISO files). These become particularly helpful during compressing executable files and certain system folders. Multiple files could be compressed using the above-mentioned programs and depending on the method of compression used, heaps of space could be saved. With the newer upgrades to these programs being readily available, extracting files from the compressed folder has also become extremely easy.