Submit compression lets you decrease the size of your email attachments, make your backups take up less space and make the files you put online download much faster. To compress a file you will have to discover software application that can compress files, and you’ll have to discover how to utilize it. Sounds made complex? Don’t worry, in this brief post you’ll find out whatever you need to know about the best ways to compress files!
Selecting The Right Tools
There are lots of applications that can compress files. They are normally called “file archivers” or “archiving software”. The speed, effectiveness (compression ratio), file formats supported and all the other functions differ significantly in between various tools. Some archivers are totally free to utilize, others are “try prior to you buy”, and some are even incorporated in contemporary operating systems. How do you select the best archiver for you?
There are a number of things that you have to consider when searching for a tool to compress files:
Compression ratio. Some archivers will produce smaller sized files. Many archiving tools will let you choose the level of compression and/or the format of the compressed file. Much better compression often comes at the cost of decreased speed. Note that some kinds of files – e.g. music in the mp3 format and video files – cannot be compressed efficiently with general function archivers. A good file archiver need to offer high compression ratio and the ability to set it manually, so as to provide you some control over how long the archiving will take.
Supported file formats. Many people skip over this critical point when selecting an archiver. While the most popular format is ZIP, you’re likely to come across many different (and sometimes much better) file formats if you ever download files from the Internet. For instance, the RAR format, which uses great compression, is fairly typical on the internet and in BitTorrent downloads. BZ2, TAR and GZ are popular amongst the users of Unix-based systems. And that’s simply from the top of my head – there are really lots more. A good archiving tool should understand the best ways to compress files utilizing some popular formats (like ZIP) and should be able to open all popular file formats.
Expense. Last, however not the least, there’s the matter of cost. This is something you’ll need to choose yourself. Submit archivers aren’t the most pricey kind of software application, so you can most likely find a great shareware archiver in the $20-$ 50 range. Alternatively, if all you need is a basic tool that understands how to compress files (and decompress them later on, too), you can opt for one of the freeware archivers. Though they might do not have the shiny interface and “extra” functions (which mundane users don’t care about anyway), totally free archivers are frequently as good as industrial tools at compressing and decompressing files.
Personally, I suggest WinRAR – a shareware archiver. 7-Zip is a great freeware option. When it comes to the ever-so-popular WinZip, I think it’s simply not worth the money. ZIP compression is inferior to both RAR and 7-Zip, plus nearly any archiver can handle.zip files.
Ways to Compress Files Using 7-Zip
Yep, we’re finally there – the actual step-by-step directions on ways to compress files! They’re written for the free 7-Zip tool (http://www.jsminification.com/) due to the fact that I didn’t want to pressure you into buying a business application.
- Select the file(s) you want to compress and right-click it.
- From the popup menu select 7-Zip -> Contribute to archive …
- In the dialog box that will appear you need to set the archive name (the upper textbox) and pick an archive format. The default is 7z, which uses great compression, but beware – if you’re going to send the file to a good friend or put it online, you ought to think about picking the zip format which is better supported by other archivers.
- You can also set the compression level; the default is “Regular” and i’s all right in many cases.
- Click “Ok” and wait while the file is compressed.
- Done!
Now you know the best ways to compress files and can boast to your good friends about it. Simply kidding.
This short article about making ways to compress files was brought to you by Janis Elsts, a computer system developer and blogger. If you choose to utilize an archiver that does not support the RAR file format, be sure to get a free RAR extractor from Janis’ blog, so you can extract files from this common archive format.