ZIP文档格式是一种数据压缩和文档储存的文档格式，原名Deflate，发明者为菲尔·卡茨（Phil Katz），他于****年1月公布了该格式的资料。ZIP通常使用后缀名“.zip”，它的MIME格式为application/zip。目前，ZIP格式属于几种主流的压缩格式之一，其竞争者包括RAR格式以及开放源码的7z格式。从性能上比较，RAR及7z格式较ZIP格式压缩率较高，而7-Zip由于提供了免费的压缩工具而逐渐在更多的领域得到应用。Microsoft从Windows ME操作系统开始内置对zip格式的支持，即使用户的电脑上没有安装解压缩软件，也能打开和制作zip格式的压缩文档，OS X和流行的Linux操作系统也对zip格式提供了类似的支持。因此如果在网络上传播和分发文档，zip格式往往是最常用的选择。

ZIP is an archive file format that supports lossless data compression. A .ZIP file may contain one or more files or directories that may have been compressed. The .ZIP file format permits a number of compression algorithms, though DEFLATE is the most common. This format was originally created in **** by Phil Katz, and was first implemented in PKWARE, Inc.'s PKZIP utility, as a replacement for the previous ARC compression format by Thom Henderson. The .ZIP format is now supported by many software utilities other than PKZIP. Microsoft has included built-in .ZIP support (under the name "compressed folders") in versions of Microsoft Windows since 1998. Apple has included built-in .ZIP support in Mac OS X 10.3 (via BOMArchiveHelper, now Archive Utility) and later. Most free operating systems have built in support for .ZIP in similar manners to Windows and Mac OS X.