Displaying, Decompressing, and Creating Archives

To save space on the hard disk, use a packer that compresses files and directories to a fraction of their original size. The application Ark can be used to manage such archives. It supports common formats, such as zip, tar.gz, tar.bz2, lha, and rar.

Start Ark from the main menu or from the command line with ark. If you already have some compressed files, move these from an open Konqueror window to the Ark window to view the contents of the archive. To view an integrated preview of the archive in Konqueror, right-click the archive in Konqueror and select Preview in Archiver. Alternatively, select File+Open in Ark to open the file directly.

Figure 2.8. Ark: File Archive Preview

Once you have opened an archive, perform various actions. Action offers options such as Add File, Add Folder, Delete, Extract, View, Edit With, and Open With.

To create a new archive, select File+New. Enter the name of the new archive in the dialog that opens and specify the format using Filter. After confirming with Save or by pressing Enter, Ark opens an empty window. You can drag and drop files and directories from the file manager into this window. As the final step, Ark compresses everything into the previously selected archive format. For more information about Ark, select Help+Ark Handbook.