CAD users collaborate, use the Internet extensively and share data within
their own businesses, with associates, and with clients. Moving data efficiently is an
important goal to aim for. Here's one way to get the job done easily and efficiently.
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The shine has gone off ‘utility’ programs on the PC desktop. Once a booming
area for all kinds of weird and wonderful software tools (and toys), operating systems
have largely incorporated the most useful of these add-ons or at least reduced the value
they offer. The same cannot be said for file archiving and compression tools however, and
now everyone is transferring information via the Net, the use of compressed data is more
reliable and more efficient than full-sized files. Ease-of-use is the best single quality
for any software tool and WinZip is both easy to use and extremely powerful in the way it
takes advantage of the Windows environment and in the results it can produce. Frankly, I
couldn’t do without it.
Installation Installing WinZip is as simple
as double-clicking on the self-extracting executable you downloaded from the WinZip site.
An interesting part of the installation is that WinZip immediately becomes available to
you through the Windows interfaces that you use all the time with shuffling your
information around.
Take a peek at the Start menu for example. There’s WinZip in the applications
section at the top, of the pop-up. This a great way to get going with WinZip. My Windows
desktop is something of an electronic pig sty and minimizing enough windows to find an
icon on the desktop is not an option I ever want to take. Accessing WinZip directly from
the Start menu was great when I first realized it was there, but I rarely use it now. The
slickest way to use WinZip is through the amazing right mouse click (RMC). Just highlight
a file and RMC. The regular Windows pop-up menu now has an option to Add yourfile.doc
(or whatever) to any zip file, and another to add it to yourfile.zip.
Choosing to create a self-named zip is the easiest and fastest way I know to compress data
and still know what’s inside the archive!
Basic Operations Adding extracting, deleting and
updating files are regular functions that you will use daily, if not hourly. There are
buttons for most of these operations and all are accessible through the menu pull-downs.
Where dialog boxes open up, the facilities are easily understood and there is not a
cryptic command in sight. What’s even better about all this ease-of-use is that you
rarely have to use any of it. Most functions can be done just by dragging and dropping
files in and out of the WinZip window.
For those even a little tentative about using WinZip, the WinZip Wizard
automates the everyday operations in a sequential "answer one thing at a time"
process that guides you gently through zipping. After a familiarization period with the
Wizard, all but the most infrequent of users will soon settle into the WinZip Classic
interface.
The WinZip interface is deceptively simple. Operations
are well-integrated with Windows. WinZip simplifies existing working methods and opens
doors to new ways of managing data files.
Compression & Archiving In essence the compression and
archiving process delivers two principal benefits:
You can combine a suite of related files into a single file for transfer, which means
that all related files travel together, in one distribution "envelope".
Compaction can vastly reduce the filesize. This means less disk space is
required to store files and reduced transmission time across the wire for electronic
transfers, with a saving in online cost. Don’t forget that the longer you spend
online transferring a file, the greater the risk of corruption through network errors.
Filesize makes a real difference.
Compression factors Files compress to different
levels depending on the type and nature of data they contain. Some files can be compressed
to a fraction of their normal size. Others can’t be hammered any thinner at all. As
some kind of example I prepared this table of typical files that a CAD user might shuffle
around. These examples really only show what can be done with these particular files, but
it does provide a loose kind of guide to what might be reasonably expected.
File name
Normal size (kb)
Zipped (kb)
Remarks
Nozzle3D.dwg
543
120
AutoCAD sample file
Pentagon.dwg
17
5
AutoCAD sample file
Countach.dwg
921
376
IntelliCAD 98 sample file
Mars rover.dwg
104
50
IntelliCAD 98 sample file
CountachA.dxf
2,375
261
ACAD R14 ASCII DXF format
CountachB.dxf
1,624
270
ACAD R14 Binary DXF format
HVAC Duct Layout.vsd
426
321
Visio Technical sample file
test.doc
18
6
MS Word 95 file
test.mdb
698
223
MS Access 95 file
teton8.bmp
683
280
Bitmap format raster file (scanned)
aerial.jpg
666
629
JPG bitmap compressed within format
site.tif
510
142
TIFF bitmap, compressed within format
Formats supported
ZIP—the ubiquitous zip format has established itself as a de
facto standard in the PC world. All versions of WinZip adhere to the PKZIP 2.x format, so
WinZip can process any archives that adhere to this format (including those created with
PKZIP), and other programs that process the format can process archives created with
WinZip. The zipping/unzipping engine was internally developed, based on compression code
by the Info-ZIP group, which is used with its permission. WinZip does not require any
external program to zip or unzip .zip archives.
WinZip also opens self-extracting archives, which have an EXE
extension. Right mouse clicking such a file pops up a menu with an option to ‘Open in
WinZip'. This enables you to explore and view the contents as you would a Zip file.
TAR, Z, GZ, TAZ,
and TGZ—Common UNIX compression and archive formats are accessible
(for viewing and extraction) by WinZip without the requirement for any external programs.
CAB files—This is a format used by Microsoft on distribution
disks to group and compress files. WinZip can access this format as well as the older
Microsoft Compress format (LZEXPAND.EXE), however there are several variations on this
format, not all of which are accessible. WinZip issues a message if it cannot open the
file you clicked on.
UUencoded, XXencoded, BinHex, and MIME—Sometimes
files show up encoded in one of these formats and having WinZip at hand to get at the
goodies is manna from heaven I can tell you. The WinZip help file also provides some
detailed background on these file encoding methods.
ARC, ARJ, and LZH—I have boxes
of 5.25inch floppy disks with material archived in ARC and ARJ format. Yes, I will get
around to converting it… one day. From time to time I even need to access stuff on
these disks. Joy of joy, WinZip works here too. However, these formats do require the
coexistance of external programs to work. WinZip just provides the nice interface.
Viewing Archive Contents Taking a peek at your zip file
contents by double clicking on the file in WinZip’s file list. If Windows already as
an application associated with that file type, that application will run and load up that
file. You could have used the "CheckOut" button to the same thing.
If there is no associated application, WinZip prompts to display the
file using one of three options; Notepad, the internal ASCII viewer, or a
user-configurable viewer.
Opening Zipped Downloads WinZip also provides a free
Internet browser support add-on that takes over when zip files are downloaded from the
Web. This add-on does not ship with the WinZip distribution file but can be downloaded for
free from the WinZip site. When the add-on is installed, WinZip takes over by opening any
zip file that is downloaded by your browser. You can examine the contents or save the
archive to disk. The add-on works with most versions of Netscape Navigator and Microsoft
Internet Explorer from version 3.0 on. A compatibility list is provided on the WinZip
site.
WinZip Self Extraction Sometimes you’ll want to
send data to folks who won’t have unzipping software and be unlikely to get it. The
problem for you is that that makes your zipped data unusable to them. For these
situations, just create a self extracting archive. WinZip can do this for you and the
result will be an EXE file that includes all your compressed data and the self-executing
extraction program. Now it really doesn’t get much easier than this!
Additional Features
Favorite Zip Folders If you have Zip files sprinkled all over your hard disk (with perfectly good
reason of course), then WinZip’s ‘Favorite Zip Folders’ will suit you. This
facility allows you to configure multiple folders that store Zip files to appear in a
single list, sorted on most recent date. This gives you fast easy access to Zip files you
regularly access. In fact I think it provides a means to use Zip files more often and more
productively, by providing the fast find and retaining the folder-based file organization
that you still need to employ.
Distribution Archive Installation If the Zip file you have open is a software distribution archive that contains an
‘install’ or ‘setup’ program, you can use WinZip ‘s
‘Install’ button to manage the installation. The Install function extracts all
files to a temporary folder, runs the installation program and then cleans up, deleting
temporary folder and all its contents. I find myself buying software directly from the Web
more than ever now days. This also means downloading and installing numerous evaluation
archives before deciding on the best solution—a tedious past-time. The Install
function saves a lot of time and repetition in these situations.
Multiple Disk Spanning WinZip supports multiple disk spanning for the creation of new archives. This
allows you to build archives that are too big to fit onto a single disk. This is done by
creating a new archive on a removable disk and just adding files to it. If the archive
exceeds the disk capacity, you will be prompted to whack in another disk.
Virus Scanning WinZip can use an external virus scanner to check files in an archive before you
extract them. During installation WinZip searches for installed virus scanners and
configures itself to use any supported program that it finds. A list of supported
anti-virus programs is available on the WinZip website.
Summary Quite simply, this is
one of the best software purchases you will ever make. It works every time, it makes a
real and positive difference to your efficiency, it saves you money, and eliminates a
great deal of hair-tearing frustration. All at a time in history when a lot of software
does exactly the opposite. If there is one improvement I could nominate for WinZip, it is
support for the SIT archive format, popular with Mac users. Even so, I
have no hesitation giving WinZip an unqualified "Highly Recommended".
