Using Drag and Drop
The drag and drop interface is one of the most natural ways to use WinZip®. Using drag and drop, you can create, open, update, extract from, print, and email Zip files--and more. Almost any drag and drop operation you can think of will work.
To drag and drop a file or folder, click it with your left mouse button, then, without releasing the button, drag it to the desired location and release the mouse button to drop it. Refer to your Windows help for more information if you haven't used drag and drop.
Creating a new Zip file
- Drag one or more files or folders from the Windows File Explorer to the WinZip desktop icon or an open WinZip window. Then, choose to save the Zip file, type a name, and choose a location for your new Zip file.
Opening a Zip file (or other archive)
- Drag a Zip file from the Windows File Explorer and drop it on the WinZip desktop icon or an open WinZip window.
- Remember, you can also double click the Zip file to open it, or right click it and choose Open with WinZip from the shortcut menu.
Adding files to a Zip file
To add files to an existing Zip file, select one or more files or folders in the Windows File Explorer and drop them on any of the following:
- an open WinZip window
- the WinZip desktop icon
- a Zip file shown in a Windows File Explorer window
- a Zip file on the desktop
- a shortcut to a Zip file
Extracting, viewing, and printing files in a Zip file
You can drag files from a Zip file open in a WinZip window to other applications, a Windows File Explorer window, the desktop, printers and shortcuts.
- If you drop files on a folder listed in the Windows File Explorer, the files are extracted to that folder.
- If you drop files on the desktop, the files are extracted to the desktop.
- If you drop files on a printer icon, the files are printed.
- If you drop files on another application or on a shortcut to an application, the files are extracted to a temporary folder and passed to the application for handling. The files are removed from the temporary folder when the Zip file is closed.
Note: it's important to remember that different applications handle dropped files in different ways. For example, when you drop a file on the WordPad application distributed as part of Windows it will embed the file as an OLE object, but when you drop a file on the Notepad application distributed as part of Windows it will open the file. You may need to experiment with drag and drop to understand how each application reacts to files dropped on it.
Dropping a Zip file on another application
Sometimes it can be useful to drag an entire Zip file from WinZip and drop it on an application. For example, you can drop a Zip file on an email message to send it as an attachment, or on a Word document to embed it as an object.
To drop an open Zip file from WinZip to another application, click the WinZip status line, drag the mouse pointer to the application window, and release the mouse button.
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