That way I can save the data to USB flash drives or dvd/cd's, then decrypt them later for use. If you can tell me what commands to enter to do this for a FOLDER, please let me know. I have openssl, GPG, truecrypt installed already. Thanks!

i think truecrypt will be enough for your purpose.

just create a truecrypt container, write a script which opens your container & copies your folders to the container & then closes the container

Note: a truecrypt container is encrypted and occupies a fixed amount of space (which is specified during its creation)

check out treucrypt's homepage for the exact commands (sorry i cannot help you there).

how do I mount it? They certainly don't make it an easy task.......Linux has to get their GUI's together!! My encrypted container is saved as /home/Doug/Encrypted. How do I mount it?? I tried this> truecrypt -u /home/Doug/Encrypted /home/Doug/Truecrypt , entered my password, and got an error: truecrypt kernel module not found etc... FATAL error. I'm taking it that the decrypted container would be opened in the /home/Doug/Truecrypt spot I chose.....Anyone know how this works?

1st of all, do NOT use the tar.gz package(which extracts into an RPM) for your distro at Truecrypts website if you updated the kernel! If you did kernel updates like me(Suse online update...etc...), go to Truecrypts website and download the SOURCE package for linux.(tar.gz). I chose the one that says(LF - Linux). Follow the installation instructions under "README", install as root in terminal. During installation, choose Y to allow non-root users to use TRUECRYPT. Makes no difference, because everything is encrypted anyway, and W/O a password to access the folder/file, your not getting anywhere. After Truecrypt is all installed, to create an encrypted container to hold your folder/files.....do this NOT from root!:

truecrypt -c /home/<your home file name here>/encrypted.

Then enter 1 for normal, 1 for FAT.
You can also just keep hitting enter, and the default setting will be chosen for you! Enter your password twice. You will also be asked for the size of the container you need. I chose 500M(500 MB). You can use K,M,OR G, depending on your need. You will be asked if a mouse is connected. Try yes 1st if you have a laptop, and keep moving the mouse around until 100% is reached-hit enter....Yes did not work for me on my laptop, so I chose no and entered 320+ random characters then hit enter. The file will then be created. After it says done, go ahead and add another folder to your /home/<your home file name here> directory. I did: mkdir /home/Doug/truecrypt. This is where your DECRYPTED /home/<your home file name>/encrypted file will be mounted. After that is completed. Do the following for your computer, Below is my home name-Doug for my computer:

truecrypt -u /home/Doug/encrypted /home/Doug/truecrypt
**Then enter your password

Your decrypted container is now available at the /home/Doug/truecrypt location! You can paste whatever you want to that location. When you are finished, just go into terminal and enter truecrypt -d. You have now unmounted your encrypted container, and the file: /home/Doug/truecrypt will show up as empty. All data is stored in the encrypted container under /home/Doug/encrypted. Good Luck!