Introducing WinZip® 12 WinZip® is the most trusted way to work with compressed files. No other compression utility is as easy to use or offers the comprehensive and productivity-enhancing approach that has made WinZip the gold standard for file-compression tools. With the new WinZip 12, you can quickly and securely zip and unzip files to conserve storage space, speed up e-mail transmission, and reduce download times. State-of-the-art file compression, strong AES encryption, compatibility with more compression formats, and new intuitive photo compression, make WinZip 12 the complete compression and archiving solution. Building on the favorite features of a worldwide base of several million users, WinZip 12 adds new features for image compression and management, support for new compression methods, improved compression performance, support for additional archive formats, and more. Users can work smarter, faster, and safer with WinZip 12. Who will benefit from WinZip® 12? The simple answer is anyone who uses a PC. Any PC user can benefit from the compression and encryption features in WinZip to protect data, save space, and reduce the time to transfer files on the Internet. There are, however, some PC users to whom WinZip is an even more valuable and essential tool. Digital photo enthusiasts: As the average file size of their digital photos increases, people are looking for ways to preserve storage space on their PCs. They have lots of photos, so they are always seeking better ways to manage them. Sharing their photos is also important, so they strive to simplify the process and reduce the time of e-mailing large numbers of images. Online file sharers: People who share all kinds of digital content — from image and media files to text documents — are always seeking ways to reduce the size of the files. Whether the file-sharing is done peer-to-peer or via an FTP site, file compression helps them to save time and resources. Online sharers often must work with files created by a variety of compression utilities, so having one tool that is compatible with all the most widely used compression formats is critical. They also frequently work with extremely large files, so they need a way to effectively share files exceeding 4 GB online. Reviewer’s Guide [ 1 ] Professionals: Lawyers, accountants, and medical professionals regularly work with confidential data. The inadvertent sharing or disclosing of this private information is something they simply cannot allow to happen. Professionals often must e-mail, save to their computer, or burn-to-media sensitive material, so they need a tool that not only compresses, but securely encrypts files into Zip archives, too. Small and home business workers: Information is at the core of many small and home businesses, ranging from self-employed professionals to real estate agents. Lacking the IT infrastructure of a large enterprise, these users need a cost-effective way to save computer storage space, secure confidential information, and back up business-critical files. Large enterprise and government IT administrators: IT professionals strive to avoid administrative and deployment headaches when choosing software and tools, so they seek a compression utility that provides volume licensing and customizable installation. They also want to automate repetitive file-archiving tasks, replace old command line compression scripts, specify required password complexity, and control the encryption capabilities available to their users. Home users: Over the last few years, the home PC has become a critical hub in daily life. The home computer is now a frequently used tool for e-mail, school projects, and music and digital photo files. As people find more uses for their PC, they also seek ways to maximize storage space, back up important data, and ensure the privacy of confidential information. Zip, RAR, and 7Z file recipients: At one time or another, most people receive a compressed file as an e-mail attachment or in an Internet download. Those files, more often than not, are in one of three compressed formats — Zip, RAR, and 7Z. Those files cannot be opened if they were created using newer compression and encryption methods that are not supported by built-in unzipping tools of their computer’s operating system. Recipients of all compressed files seek a way to open compressed files created in a variety of formats and using the latest compression and encryption methods. Reviewer’s Guide [ 2 ] Top features New and enhanced features have been added to an existing powerful toolset, making WinZip® 12 the most versatile archiving application available. Easier photo compression, sharing, and management WinZip 12 was designed with digital photo enthusiasts in mind. New features and enhancements make it easier than ever to share and manage digital photos. New! JPEG compression: Users can now fit more JPEG photos on their hard drive or removable media than ever before — without affecting image quality. The widely used JPEG format has become one of the standards for saving and sharing digital images, but to compress JPEG files in the past, image quality was sacrificed. Users can compress JPEG files 20% to 25% without compromising photo quality, photo dimensions, or file integrity. Reviewer’s Guide [ 3 ] New! Zip from Camera: This new time-saver is the ultimate “from-camera- to-grandma” solution. It lets users transfer and compress photos directly from supported digital cameras to a new Zip file for fast, efficient photo sharing. The Zip from Camera wizard helps users automatically zip all images or only selected images. In addition, WinZip 12 can even automatically rotate images before compressing them, saving the steps to manually rotate photos before adding them to a Zip file. Enhanced! Thumbnail View: Users can view thumbnails of each picture in a Zip file, so they can easily browse and delete photos. After using the New Folder tool, you can even organize your photos into folders within the Zip file with a simple drag-and-drop. New! Send Selected: A Zip file has long been a convenient way to package photos and other files before sending them. Now, WinZip 12 makes it easier than ever to share photos. The new Send Selected feature lets users select the files — any kind of file, not just graphics — to share and attach them to an e- mail as a new Zip file. WinZip 12 Pro users can also upload selected files to an FTP site as a Zip file. For even faster file sharing, users can easily resize selected pictures and attach them to an e-mail as a new Zip file, while leaving the original pictures unchanged. Reviewer’s Guide [ 4 ] Favorite! Image Viewer: A built-in image viewer in WinZip 12 Pro lets users view photos as a slide show, rotate, resize, or delete pictures all without extracting them from a Zip package, so they can quickly and efficiently manage photos. Better file compression and archiving compatibility Users can compress more file types, create smaller Zip files, and work with archiving formats with WinZip 12. New! LZMA compression method: WinZip 12 creates the smallest Zip files with the addition of the powerful LZMA compression method. WinZip now creates smaller Zip files than ever. Users can let WinZip 12 automatically choose the Best Compression method for each individual file being archived. Enhanced! Archiving format compatibility: WinZip 12 lets users quickly open more archive and disk image formats than Microsoft® Windows® and many other archiving utilities with the addition of read-and-extract support for 7Z archives, along with ISO and IMG disk image files. This — combined with existing read-and-extract support for RAR, BZ2, LHA, CAB, Z, GZ, TAR, UUE, XXE, BinHex, Mime, and Zip files — makes WinZip one of the most flexible and robust compression utilities available. Create-and-extract support for LHA, the most popular archiving format in Japan, makes for hassle-free file exchange with Japanese colleagues. Reviewer’s Guide [ 5 ] Enhanced security features WinZip 12 gives system administrators the power to configure a password policy and choose what encryption methods can be used. Whether users need to protect confidential information sent via e-mail or back up critical business and personal information, WinZip provides easy methods to secure data. New! Customizable password policies: WinZip 12 Pro gives system administrators the ability to customize encryption password and passphrase requirements. They can specify the minimum password length and the types of characters that must be used in passwords and passphrases. New! Encryption control: System administrators can configure encryption within WinZip 12 Pro based on the needs of their organization. Using a customized MSI installation, system administrators can specify which encryption methods are available to users or even prevent the use of encryption completely. Favorite! AES encryption: This FIPS-197 certified AES encprytion method has long been a WinZip hallmark. When combined with a secure password or passphrase, it gives users a level of data-privacy protection not available in Windows XP, Windows Vista and other archive utilities. In addition, users can choose the level of encryption and encrypt files already in a Zip file. New! Encryption column: In a glance, the new Encryption column indicates if a file is encrypted or not and when encrypted files are unlocked and accessible. Reviewer’s Guide [ 6 ] More streamlined workflow The new features and enhancements in WinZip 12 help users work faster by giving file information in a glance, versatile file organizational options, and flexible viewing options. New! Smart View: When users choose the content-sensitive Smart View option, WinZip 12 automatically chooses the best viewing method for the content of a Zip file. For example, if a Zip file contains photos, WinZip 12 displays the Thumbnail View, so users can quickly browse image files.