Manage a List of Files

Lists are useful if you want to add files from several different folders or if you often want to add updated versions of the same files. By saving a list of these files, you can just add them from the list instead of selecting them again each time.

To create and manage a list of files:

1. Choose Edit List File from the Compression tab.

2. Select some files in the Select files list.

Names of files or file name specifications (*.*) for files you select appear in the File name field. You can Shift+click and Ctrl+click to select multiple files.

You can edit entries in the File name field. See Edit File Names and Patterns.

3. Click Add to List to add the files in the File name field to the Files to compress list.

File names are added to the Files to compress list. The blue + means that they are marked to be added.

The File name field is cleared, ready for you to select more files.

You can click an already selected item in the Files to compress list to edit it or to see its file name if the item has a long path. Press the Esc key or click somewhere away from the item to exit the edit mode.

To save a list of files, Click Save As to open a dialog box where you can save your list to a text file.

To load a previously saved list of files, click Load List to open a dialog to open the text file containing the list you want to use.

Several buttons help you manage a list.

Manage lists of files in the Files to compress list with the buttons described in the following table:

Button	What it does
Load List	Add a previously saved list of files.
Save As	Save the current Files to compress list as a text file to load into another archive.
Clear	Removes all files from the list
Delete	Deletes selected file names from the list.
Exclude/Include	Enables you to exclude files in the list from the set of files be added to an archive. Files to be included are flagged with a blue ; files to be excluded are flagged with a red . Choose the Exclude/Include button to switch the flag from blue to red and vice versa on files selected in the list.

Click Advanced to hide these controls.

You can use similar controls to create and manage a list of files from the Add Files to an Archive dialog.

Edit File Names and Patterns

You can edit the names and patterns in the File name field. For example, if you just want all the .txt files but not the other files in myfolder, you can change myfolder\*.* to myfolder\*.txt.

You can also enter a file name pattern by itself— for example, *.txt or my03??.doc. A file name pattern picks out all files whose names match the pattern.

Wildcard character	Matches
Asterisk (*)	Zero or more characters
Question mark (?)	Zero or one single character

So, for example, *.txt matches all files (in the folders searched) whose names end in .txt. Pattern *.htm? matches all files that end in .htm or .html (along with any other file with a four-letter extension beginning with .htm).

An advantage of using file name patterns, particularly if you are building a list to use again, is that patterns pick out all files that match. So even if new .txt files are added to a folder after you create your list, the pattern *.txt will match them the next time you use your list.