# The &ark; Handbook

## Introduction

&ark; is a program for viewing, extracting, creating and modifying archives. &ark; can handle various archive formats such as `tar`, `gzip`, `bzip2`, `zip`, `rar`, `7zip`, `xz`, `rpm`, `cab` and `deb` (support for certain archive formats depend on the appropriate command-line programs being installed).

&ark;'s main window &ark;'s main window

## Using &ark;

### Opening Archives

To open an archive in &ark;, choose Open... (&Ctrl;O) from the File menu. You can also open archive files by dragging and dropping from &konqueror; or &dolphin;. Archive files should be associated with &ark;, so you can also right click a file in &konqueror; or &dolphin; and select Open with &ark; to open it or select an extract action for this file.

If you have enabled the information panel in the Settings menu additional information about the selected folders or files in the archive is displayed.

### Working with Files

Once an archive has been opened, you can perform various operations on the files inside the archive. By selecting a file and using the Action menu, you can choose what you want to do:

- Add File... will add files from your disk to the archive.

- Add Folder... will add folders from your disk to the archive.

- Delete (Del) will remove the currently selected file(s) from the archive.

- Extract... (&Ctrl;E) opens a submenu with previously accessed folders, and you can select to quick extract into any of them.

- Preview will open the file in the associated viewer for that file type.

### Extracting Archives and Removing Files

Once an archive has been opened in &ark;, it can be extracted. To quick extract files from an archive, you can select Extract from the Action menu. This opens a submenu with previously accessed folders, and you can select to quick extract into any of them. Clicking on the check mark at the right side of the Extract button in the toolbar performes the same action.

To open the Extract dialog click the Extract button in the toolbar or use the shortcut &Ctrl; E. This dialog allows you to select where you will extract files to. The default location is the folder the archive is in.

You can specify to extract the files into a subfolder. The default name of this subfolder is the first part of the archive name, but you can edit it to your needs. If you want to preserve paths when extracting, select this option. You may also choose to open the destination folder in &konqueror; or &dolphin; or close &ark; once the extraction is complete.

If a file in the archive list is highlighted, you can also select which files to extract:

- Selected files only extracts only the files which have been selected.

- All files extracts the entire contents of the archive.

To extract a single file from an archive, click on the filename and drag it to the target folder

Extracting files from an archive does not change the archive and its contents. Use Action Delete (Del) for this task.

### Creating Archives and Adding Files

To create a new archive in &ark;, choose New from the File menu.

You can then type the name of the archive, with the appropriate extension (`tar.gz`, `zip`, `bz2` &etc;) or select a supported format in the Filter combo box and check the Automatically select filename extension option. To add files to the archive, choose Add File... from the Action menu. If you want to add an entire folder to an archive, choose Add Folder... from the Action menu.

An alternative way to add files to the archive is to drag one or more files from &konqueror;, &dolphin; or the desktop into the main &ark; window, and it will be added to the current archive.

## Using &ark; in the Filemanager

Clicking with the &RMB; on an archive in a filemanager like &dolphin; or &konqueror; displays a context menu with an item Open with Ark. The menu has these additional items to extract an archive using &ark;:

- Extract Archive Here, Autodetect Subfolder creates a subfolder in the folder with the archive and extracts the folders and files into it.

- Extract Archive To... works like in &ark;.

- Extract Archive Here extracts the content of the archive into same folder.

&dolphin;'s or &konqueror;'s context menu for a selection displays these actions in the Compress submenu:

- Here creates a Tar archive (gzip-compressed) in the current folder with the extension `.tar.gz`.

- As ZIP Archive, As RAR Archive or As ZIP/TAR Archive creates these archive types in the current folder.

- Compress To... opens a dialog where you can select folder, name and archive type.

## Advanced Batch Mode

&ark; has an advanced batch mode to manage archives without launching a &GUI; interface. This mode allows you to extract or create archives and add files to them.

The batch mode is documented in &ark;'s man page.

## Credits and License

&ark; is Copyright © 1997-2008, The Various &ark; Developers

## Authors:

- Raphael Kubo da Costa rakuco@FreeBSD.org

- Harald Hvaal haraldhv@stud.ntnu.no

- Helio Chissini de Castro helio@conectiva.com.br

- Georg Robbers Georg.Robbers@urz.uni-hd.de

- Henrique Pinto henrique.pinto@kdemail.net

- Roberto Selbach Teixeira maragato@kde.org

- Robert Palmbos palm9744@kettering.edu

- Francois-Xavier Duranceau duranceau@kde.org

- Corel Corporation (author: Emily Ezust) emilye@corel.com

- Corel Corporation (author: Michael Jarrett) michaelj@corel.com

Documentation Copyright © 2000 &Matt.Johnston; &Matt.Johnston.mail;

Documentation updated for &kde; 3.3 by Henrique Pinto henrique.pinto@kdemail.net.

&underFDL; &underGPL;

## Installation

### How to obtain &ark;

&install.intro.documentation;

### Requirements

In order to successfully use &ark;, you need &kde; 4. &GNU; `tar` and a recent `gzip` are also needed if you want &ark; to handle tar archives. To handle other file formats, you need the appropriate command line programs, such as `bzip2`, `zip`, `unzip`, `ar`, `rar`, `7zip`, `xz`, `rpm`, `cab` and `deb`.

### Compilation and Installation

&install.compile.documentation;
&documentation.index;