Windows File Management
Copying files
The safest way to copy or move files using 'Explorer' is as follows.
- Open 'Explorer':
You can do this by holding down the 'Windows' key (at the bottom left of your keyboard, with a 'Flying Windows' logo on it) and pressing 'E'.Open 'Explorer' if you've not already done so. - Select the files that you want to copy or move.
- Hold down CTRL, and press C to Copy or X to Cut.
- Select the directory in which you want the files to land.
- Hold down CTRL, and press V to paste the files.
Compressing files and folders
Quick notes on how to use file compression software
- When you need to compress a group of files ...
- On a Windows machine with Zipcentral,
- Run Windows Explorer
- Select the files you'd like to archive
- Right-mouse-click the group of files, and choose 'Add to archive' ...
- You'll need to provide a file name for the zipped archive, and 'Zipcentral' will then create a new archive and add your chosen files ...
- When you receive a zipped archive ...
- Open it using say Zipcentral or Stuffit. You'll then see a list of the files it contains and can extract some or all of them.
File compression and images, photos
You can bundle a group of images into a zip file, but saving photos as small files deserves a page to itself
Quick explanation of file compression ...
File compression works a bit like bundling say five pillows into one pillowcase.
Computer files tend to contain a lot of 'spare space' - like air in a pillow. There's software (Winzip, Zipcentral, Stuffit) which can take a group of files, compress them using that 'spare space' and even combine the group into a single smaller file - useful if you need to move files from one computer to another. The resulting files, referred to as 'archives' tend to end in '.zip'. or '.sit'.
How much space can I save using file compression?
This varies - it depends on how much 'space' the compression software can find in the file
- Files that compress well
- 'Word' files, spreadsheets, perhaps bitmapped images
- Ones that don't
- Images whose file formats already compress them - 'gifs' and 'jpgs'. These files can actually bloat in size when passed through compression software!
File Compression Software
- Pkzip, pkunzip
- Compression software that works from a command line - you might still meet it. The name uses the mental picture of 'Zipping up' something or other. Produces files named identified with the file extension '.zip'.
- Winzip
- The (shareware) market leader to zip and unzip files. Also produces '.zip' files.
- Zipcentral
- Freeware equivalent to Winzip
- Stuffit
- The Apple Mac equivalent of Winzip
Recognising a zipped archive
The file may have the extension '.zip' or '.sit'.
Self extracting archives
You can use this software to make archives that are self extracting - the file name ends in .exe and when the file is 'Run' it creates the set of files compressed within it.
Compressing Powerpoint Presentations for 'Minerva'
To include one of these in 'Minerva' it's a good idea to save it as web pages - html. To do this simply save the presentation from Powerpoint as 'Type - Web Page'. What this actually produces is a set of web page files, in a folder or two. To put them onto 'Minerva' it's then a good idea to compress them into a single archive, and you can tell 'Minerva' which is the index file of the resource ...
Mark Annand • Site updated April 12th 2013 • Site Counter:
All before you, in this world, is smoke and shadows.All before you, in this world, is smoke and shadows.
Words found on a door lintel in the garden of a house in the Cretan village of Argiroupolis.
The lintel is a fragment from the city state Lappa, which occupied the same site.
Fifteen hundred years later, when you use the web, from time to time you might well feel that the author was on to something. And if you work with particle physics, you'll know he was ...