Stuffit Expander

## Information

Stuffit Expander is a compression program by Aladdin Systems, Inc. This program is a must for decompress compressed files and encoded files.

## Description

StuffIt Expander is designed to be the simplest, most efficient way to expand compressed files and encoded files that you may have received from the Internet, an online information service, bulletin board system, over a network, or from a co-worker. StuffIt Expander handle the four most common compression and encoding formats, which are StuffItช and Compact Pro archives (.sit, .sea, and .cpt) , BinHex (.hqx) , and MacBinary (.bin). Using StuffIt Expander will let you access the millions of compressed and encoded files you will find on the Internet and online services, or even those sent you by a friend.

An archive is a single file which acts like a container, holding one or more files or folders. Usually the files in an archive are compressed, so they take up less room on a diskette or hard drive, and take less time to transmit over networks and modems. Unless the archive is self-extracting (.sea), you need a separate utility to access the files in an archive. StuffIt Expander is a utility which lets you decompress the contents of archives. All non-encrypted archives created by any version of StuffItช and Compact Proช are supported, including files created with other members of the StuffIt family, including StuffIt Deluxe, StuffIt Lite, or DropStuff.

StuffIt Expander will also expand files which have been encoded in BinHex 4.0 (.hqx) format, such as those commonly found on the Internet. Multipart BinHex files, such as those appearing in Internet newsgroup postings (e.g. comp.binaries.mac), are fully supported. StuffIt Expander will also ignore any headers from BinHex files.

StuffIt Expander will also expand files which have been encoded in MacBinary (.bin) format. This encoding method is commonly used by the online services that are not Internet based. Be aware that MacBinary files may not have the .bin extension as part of the file name, but don't worry because StuffIt Expander can handle these files. An example of when you would use this feature, is when you download a Macintosh file to your PC, and bring the file to your Macintosh .

You can also configure StuffIt Expander to perform periodic checks on the contents of a specified folder (called a Watch Folder), and to expand any new files that it finds. Therefore, you can set StuffIt Expander to expand groups of files in the background while others are being downloaded.

## Tutorials

**System 6 -**

System 6 users, or those who prefer a manual way to expand their files, should:

1. Double click the StuffIt Expander icon.

2. Choose the Expand command from the File menu.

3. Select the file to be expanded.

4. Click the Expand button. A progress dialog will appear as each file gets expanded into the same folder as the original file you specified.

5. Return to step 2 to expand more files or choose Quit from the File menu to exit StuffIt Expander.

**System 7 -**

Under System 7, your files can be expanded by dragging those icons onto the StuffIt Expander icon. You may also drag a folder or disk icon over StuffIt Expander, and it will expand any compressed or encoded files within the folder or disk.

1. In the Finder, select one or more icons that you want expanded.

2. Drag them over the StuffIt Expander icon until it is highlighted.v
3. Let go of the mouse/trackball button.

StuffIt Expander will open and youll see a progress dialog. Each archive gets expanded into a new folder, located in the same folder as the archive.

When everything is expanded, StuffIt Expander automatically quits.