WinZip uses archives which are files that contain documents. Typically, the documents in an archive are compressed. WinZip uses the term “Add” to mean “compress documents and add them to an archive”. "Extract” means “decompress documents in an archive, creating separate files on a disk”.

The WinZip window
The WinZip window is where you start many of your operations. You can open it through the Start menu. The WinZip window also opens automatically if you double-click on an archive in My Computer or the Windows Explorer.

Then, select the archive you want to open in the Open Archive dialog box. This dialog box works just like the Open dialog boxes in other applications: just select the document you want to open from the list of documents

Once an existing archive is open you can extract or work with the documents in the archive. The documents in an archive are listed in a list box in the main WinZip window.

You can look at all the document names, with details, stored in the archive, using the scroll bar, arrow keys or usual Windows commands.

You can quickly sort the main window by clicking once on the header (e.g. click on “Name” in the header above the list of documents to sort the list by filename).

Creating a New Archive
You can create a new archive by selecting New Archive from the File menu or by clicking the New toolbar button. This activates the New Archive dialog box.

First, you type the name of the archive you want to create, not the names of the documents you want to compress. This dialog box works similarly to standard Windows file dialog boxes, so you can choose the drive and folder where the archive will be created. The names of any existing archives on the selected drive and folder are listed to help you choose a name that is not already in use.

Normally after creating an archive you will want to add documents to the archive, so verify that the Add dialog check box is checked to automatically activate the Add dialog box.

Adding Documents
You can add documents to an existing archive you've opened or to a new archive you've created, as in the previous section. If the Add dialog box is not displayed, select Add from the Actions menu or click the Add toolbar button.

In the Add dialog box, select the documents you want to add to the archive. The easiest way to do this is usually to click on the desired documents in the list near the top of the Add dialog box. You can select multiple documents using normal Windows file selection conventions (for example, hold down the shift key while clicking to select multiple documents).

Once you are done making your document selection, click the Add button to add the documents. Once WinZip finishes, it will update the document list in the main window to reflect the new documents in the archive.

Note: When you add documents to an archive, the original documents on disk are not deleted.

Once all the documents have been added, you now have a ZIP file on your PC that contains all these documents and can be dealt with accordingly i.e. e-mailed, copied to disk, etc.

Retrieving Documents
When you have opened an archive ZIP file, then you can extract the documents so that you can use them in Word or Excel.

Click on the document you wish to extract and then click on the Extract button on the toolbar.

You then need to tell the system where to extract your document to. This should be your D: drive and your data directory. You can also choose whether to extract just the selected document or all the documents in the archive. Click on Extract button. You will now be able to open this document in the appropriate package i.e. Word or Excel.

Self Extracting Files
Normal archived ZIP files will need a copy of WinZip on the computer to extract documents. However, if you want to send some zipped documents to a PC that does not have WinZip, then you can create a self extracting archive.

To do this, follow the normal instructions for creating an archive and adding documents to it, but then choose Actions from the menu bar, and choose Make .Exe File from the drop down menu.

Click on OK and the system will create a file with the same archive name, but this time with a .exe extension instead of .zip. This file can then be copied onto a floppy disk or e-mailed as required.