October 2006: Files and Folders

Files and Folders:
The question I most often receive is, "Where is my file? It is the most basic question there is. Computers store files in folders just like you did when you saved paper documents in File Cabinets. Like file cabinets there were drawers and folders in the drawers. There could be folders in folders to further simplify find documents. Each drawer was labeled, each folder was labeled. See File Cabinet
It is the same with computers, only instead of printing and gluing labels on folders and drawers. You type the names in when you "Save As". See Files and Hard Drives. For example "Save As" C:/My Documents/Business Letters/John means that The cabinet is "C", the drawer is "My Documents", the folder is "Business Letters" and the inner folder is "John".In reality "C" is a hard drive in your computer. Instead of paper it stores the information digitally. "My Documents" is a portion of the hard drive as are the other sub folders. The computer creates a list of all the folders you create and remembers where it stored them. In addition to saving folders in folders you can save documents is each folder. For example if I wrote a letter to 3M company about masking tape I could "Save As", C:/My Documents/Business Letters/John/3m tape 6/20/06.doc. See Folders. I would use the title of the document to name the Company, subject and date so I could find it.
The ".doc" refers to the type of file it is, in this case a "Word" Microsoft document. This is so the computer knows to open it with Microsoft Word. It is called an extension.
Each program on your computer has extensions that refer to a specific type program. Some are very common and can be opened by several programs and others are very specific and can only be opened by specific programs. For example "jpg" is a standard image format and can be opened by most photo editing, photo cataloging and printing programs. But "psd" is a specific PhotoShop extension that can only be opened by the Photo Shop program. Normally the program will offer you the potion to save as the standard format for the program or as a more general format that could be used by other programs. For example "MS Word" lets you save with the extension "doc" its normal extension, "txt" a general Windows text document extension or as a "rtf"(rich text format) another text format.
Many programs set aside a particular folder to save their documents. For example "MS Works" creates a folder in its program folder called "My Documents". To find "Works" document they are stored in C:/programs/Works/My Documents by default.
Important Rules: When your start to create a new document go to "File" in the "Function Bar" at the top of the screen. Clink on it and choose "Save As". That will allow you to name the file and put it where you can find it later. Once it is "Saved As" you can then use the "Save" function for future saving of the file. When you do this you can see the name of the file in the Blue bar at the top of the screen.
Find Your Work: You wrote a letter a while ago to XYZ company and want to find a copy. If you used "Word" open Word and click on "File". All your recent documents(about 5) will be listed at the bottom. If it isn't there click on "Open" and a screen opens showing where your documents are normally stored. It should be there. If you were being tricky and put it in a special place, you still and find it. Close "Word" and left click on the "Start" icon on the bottom left. Click on "Search" and a screen asking what to search for appears. Choose "Files and Folders" and type "*.doc" in the search box. Because you know it was a "doc" file the computer will search for all files with the extension "doc". The "*" is a wild card symbol that means list all "doc" files. The computer will search all file and folders on you computer looking for "doc". and a list will appear at the right. Once you find the one you are looking for double click on it and "Word" will open it on the screen.
If you don't know what type of file it is but, remember the name you used to save it or even part of the file name, use search to find it. In my example above I could search for "3M Tape".
Can I Create a Folder?
Yes, you can and here is how to do it. The first step is to determine where you want to create the folder. For this example, we will create a folder in the C drive called "My Very Own Files". Right click on the "Start" button on the bottom left of the screen. Left click on the "Explore" choice. A new screen will open showing all the files and folders on the computer. You will be in the Folders called "Start Menu".Move the slider bar on the right up until you see "C:" to the left. Click on it and it will turn blue. (Only click once). Now move the cursor to the top of the screen to the "File" option and click once select "New" by left clicking and then "Folder" and left click. Now the tricky part, move the cursor to the far right of the screen and move down until you see a a folder "New Folder" in blue. Type in the name of the folder in this case "My Very Own Files" and enter. The name will change and the folder will sort itself into alphabetical order. You now have a new folder called "My Very Own Files" that you can use to store your work. There is only one important rule, the name can have only 32 characters. It can not have certain characters like ".,?" and most non letter or number symbols, so avoid them. The name is so you can find, it not to make it read like prose.