Scenario:  You have multiple files to send to someone via email, and you would like to combine all the files into one single .ZIP file. Combining all the files into one “archive” allows the files to be compressed into one smaller file is much more efficient. It may help to think of a .ZIP file as a shoebox, and “zipping” as placing all your letters, pictures, etc. into the shoebox. You can then send the shoebox through the mail instead of sending each individual item by itself.

 Solution:

 What you need:

You must have a program to create the .ZIP file. A couple of popular commercial programs are listed at the bottom of this article. For purposes of this article, I’ll assume you are using Windows XP, since the ability to create .ZIP files is built in to the operating system.

How to do it:

1. Create a folder on your desktop. Give it any short name you want.
2. Copy all the files you want to send into the new folder.
3. Close the folder.
4. Right click the folder, and select “Send To”, then select “Compressed (zipped) Folder”.
5. If you get a dialog asking to re-associate .ZIP files with Compressed (zipped) Folder, select No.
   
   You should now have a .ZIP file on your desktop with the same name as the folder. This .ZIP archive file contains all the individual files that are still in the folder.
    
6. Open your email program and create the new message.
7. Attach the new .ZIP file to your email message and send it.
8. (There are many ways to attach files. In Outlook, you can drag the .ZIP file to the body of the message and it will automatically be attached.)

 That’s all there is to it.

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