But with PKZIP you can zip all of those files into one big file, compressing them as it goes. It can even put that one big file on several different disks. (My biggest zip file spans twenty-five 3 1/2" disks!) Then you take it to the new computer, and simply unzip it onto the new machine. You have only one file to mess with, instead of several smaller ones, and they are compressed so it takes less storage medium to do the job. For example, our catalog in MS Word format is 103K in size. Yet, the zip file for down loading is only 33K, and that's with two extra 3K files thrown in on top of it. Once you start using this little utility you will wonder how you ever got along without it.

I also use PKZIP to back up all my files, and find it much easier to use than the MS Backup program that comes with Windows. A simple little batch file can be written that will automatically back up one or several directories. It's a piece of cake!

Considering all this, it's easy to see why PKZIP lends itself so well to the Internet - moving programs and files from one computer to another.

There are two versions you can get. One is the Windows version, and the other is the DOS version. Of course, it almost goes without saying that the Windows version is very user friendly, while the DOS version isn't. However, the DOS version takes a tiny fraction of the space (100K) that the Windows version takes (over 1 meg), especially after all the instruction files have been deleted. So if you don't have much room on your hard disk, perhaps the DOS version is for you.

You can get the Windows version at http://www.winzip.com/