To extract one of these archive files on a UNIX system: uncompress SchipDocs.tar tar -xf SchipDocs This produces a directory named SchipDocs containing the files in the archive. Note that your system may or may not be sensitive to including the .Z file name extension for the uncompress step and/or the .tar file name extension for the tar step. The inverse process, to archive a directory SchipDocs containing files is: tar -cf SchipDocs.tar SchipDocs compress SchipDocs.tar This produces a compressed archive file SchipDocs.tar.Z. The process is similar for the other two archive files.