Most of us who happen to zip files during the course of our work hardly even bother to look into the settings of the zipping application. Normally when you use an application like WinZip and try to zip a file, you receive the option to choose a compression method.
Of the several options that you receive, if you choose the best compression method, set as default in any current version of WinZip, the output file would be in the .zipx format.
.Zipx explained
Essentially when you choose any of the more advanced compression options provided by WinZip to compress a file, the output file has the .zipx extension. An archive created with a .zipx extension would be smaller in size than a one created with a normal compression method. It is important to note that current iterations of WinZip tend to have .zipx output as default. One thing that you need to keep in mind about the .zipx format is that it is proprietary to WinZip and thus some zip applications may not support it. However with time most popular zip tools including the widely popular 7zip has started extending support to the format.
How to create a .zipx file
In order to create a zipx file you need to launch the WinZip application and then choose the files you wish to compress. Once selected you can click on the archive option wherein you need to ensure that the best compression method is ticked. Once the same is done the resultant file would be in the .zipx format.
Benefits of .zipx format
When you choose to use the .zipx format you can considerably reduce the size of the output files as compared to traditional methods. Further the .zipx archive is often better choice if you are looking to compress multimedia files which do not give appreciable results under legacy compression techniques. Even in case of normal word or text files often a difference of 4 to 15% in compression ratio has been noticed.
Dealing with a corrupt .zipx file
As with normal files, the .zipx files too are vulnerable to corruption from a myriad of reasons and it would hardly be a surprise if you come across a corrupt .zipx archive. While normal zip files can be recovered by a host of recovery applications, extracting contents of a zipx file is a tricky affair. Thus in such a scenario you need to grab hold of an advanced zip repair tool like DataNumen Zip Repair to dig out the contents of .zipx file. This sophisticated application is capable of recovering data from even large corrupted .zipx files with effortless ease and can even engage in batch recovery. In case you use zip files to store data for official purposes then DataNumen Zip repair makes even the more sense for you. Besides assuring you that the data stored in your archive files would always be accessible, the application can work as an effective e-discovery tool.
Author Introduction:
Alan Chen is President & Chairman of DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including zip repair and rar repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com .