Using tar and gzip to Compress Files and Directories

Create and Compress and Archive
Archive a group of files:

tar -czvf archive.tar.gz file1 file2 file3

Archive an entire directory:

tar -czvf archive.tar.gz directory/

Extract a Compressed Archive

tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz

List the Contents of a Compressed Archive

tar -tzvf archive.tar.gz

Common tar Switches

-c create a new archive
-x extract files from an archive
-t list the contents of an archive
-z filter the archive through gzip
-v [...]