7Zip Guide

John Mackenzie | Rev 01 | Dec 2022

7Zip is recommended to reduce file size as it is a good balance between encoding/decoding time and
compression rate versus Windows inbuilt “send to zip” functionality. Also you have the option to split a single
file into multiple files easily and password protect if so desired.

Figure 1. Results of compressing a typical Chorus file: 43% file size reduction (.7z) vs 32% (.zip)

Figure 2. Depending on type of data, file size reduction can be even greater (428% reduction)

Installation Instructions
Download here:

https://www.7-zip.org/a/7z2201-x64.msi

If URL has expired

https://www.7-zip.org/download.html

and choose the below option:

Follow the prompts to install the software, just accept the default settings.
 Creating a .7z file

Figure 3. Once installed, in File Explorer:

1. right mouse click on the desired file

2. a context menu will appear, move the mouse to “7-Zip” and slide mouse to the right to expand the
options
3. Choose the option “Add to *filename*.7z”

Figure 4. Wait for the process to finish

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 Creating .7z Split Files
Sometime internet connectivity on location can be not only slow but also intermittent so an upload may be
interrupted before complete resulting in wasted time attempting to send data.

One solution if this is the case is to split a file into multiple sections. For example you may wish to split the
DLIS file below into 50MB chunks. To do so:

Figure 5. Step 1: Right click with mouse and choose "Add to Archive" option

2. You may leave all options default. In “Split to Volume” section enter how many MB each piece
should be, e.g. here “50M” means each piece will be 50MB in size.
3. If so desired, you can specify a password required to open the archive.
4. Hit OK to start the process.

Figure 6. Resultant files created: 3x50MB files + 1x 30.3MB file

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