File Management What is File Management? What is a File? Folder? Types of Files Finding a File Creating a File Saving a File Organizing Files Creating a Folder Renaming Folders and Files External Devices What is File Management? As you use your computer and create files you may need some help in storing and retrieving those files. File management is naming, moving, organizing, and deleting files on your computer so that they are easy for you to access. What is a File? A file is the storage medium for a record or data on your computer. A file can be a word processing document, a digital or scanned photograph, a video clip, an audio or music recording, a PowerPoint slide show or a movie. Illustration from non-computer world: You have a letter in a folder. The letter is the file. The medium or type of file is the piece of paper. What is a Folder? A folder is not a file. A folder is something that stores files. You can have as many folders as you want. You can have folders within folders. Folders can be plain or include icons. They might look like: Types of Files .doc / .docx = Text-based documents (like letters or fliers), might look like:
Transcript
File ManagementWhat is File Management?What is a File? Folder? Types of FilesFinding a FileCreating a File
Saving a FileOrganizing FilesCreating a FolderRenaming Folders and FilesExternal Devices
What is File Management?As you use your computer and create files you may need some help in storing and retrieving those files. File management is naming, moving, organizing, and deleting files on your computer so that they are easy for you to access.
What is a File?A file is the storage medium for a record or data on your computer. A file can be a word processing document, a digital or scanned photograph, a video clip, an audio or music recording, a PowerPoint slide show or a movie. Illustration from non-computer world:
You have a letter in a folder. The letter is the file. The medium or type of file is the piece of paper.
What is a Folder?A folder is not a file. A folder is something that stores files. You can have as many folders as you want. You can have folders within folders. Folders can be plain or include icons. They might look like:
.xls / .xlsx / .ppt = Files such as spreadsheets or slide presentations, might look like:
Finding Your File with Windows Explorer All the different parts of your computer/ external devices will show up in the navigation panel on the left hand side of the Windows Explorer window
Opening a FileFind your file and double click on it. Use the left button on your mouse
Creating a Folder1. Click on New Folder near the top of the window 2. The computer will make a new folder for you. 3. Type a name for the folder and hit the Enter on the keyboard.
Renaming Folders and Files1. Place your mouse arrow on the text below the icon of the file or folder you want to rename2. Press the left button once, the computer know knows which file or folder you want to rename3. Click the left button again, and type in a new name4. Press Enter
Moving Files or FoldersUse drop and drag to move files or folders to different areas of your computer. It helps to have to two library windows open like below:
Saving a File
Go to Save As on your software program or you can usually press the Control key and the S key to save as well.
If it’s the first time you have saved this document the Save As box will open. Give your file a good name and store it in a place you be able to remember.
Different Views There are multiple ways to view the contents of a folder. The actual contents
will not change, but the way you view those items will. Open the Documents folder from the Start menu if not already open. You will
see the contents of the folder displayed.
To change the view, click on the down arrow next to the view button in the upper right corner.
Choose another option from the list that appears. The options for icons are useful when viewing a folder full of images. Choose a few options from the list to see what happens. If you need to, maximize the window to see all the available information. In the Details view, you can sort the files by Name, Date, Size, etc. by clicking on the appropriate words
at the top of the column.
Search for Files
To search the computer for a file, click on the Start menu button.
Right above the button will be an area that says “Search programs and files.” Click on top of the words and type the item you want to search for.
Type the file name or a phrase that is in the file itself. It will automatically search your computer and display results above the search box.
The computer will find all the files that contain all or part of the file name. To open that document, double click it from the list.
Saving to a Flash Drive (or thumbnail drive) Double click on the icon for your document on the Desktop to open it. Go to Save As In the box on the left, find the item called Computer. Click on your inserted flash drive. (It may be called
Removable Disk, Kingston, or the name of your flash drive’s manufacturer.) Click on the Save button and close the program. Your document is now on your flash
drive.
Removing your Flash Drive When you are finished using your flash drive and would like to remove it, click on the device icon from
your system tray. In our case, it is hiding. Click on the Up arrow to display hidden system tray icons.
In the window that appears, click on the device icon- it will have a little green check. Click on the device you would like to eject.
A message will appear, letting you know is it is safe to remove the device.
The tips in this article can help you master file management by supplying some tips to help you better manage and organize computer files. After you’ve decided on a strategy for organizing and managing files and folders, we bet you’ll see improved time management skills and increased productivity.
Tips to manage your files betterUse these tips to help with organizing your computer files.
1. Adopt consistent methods for file and folder naming. When learning how to manage files and folders, it is important that you develop a naming scheme for the kinds of files you create most often and then stick to it. To change an existing file or folder name, right-click the name in the folder structure. Click Rename, and then type the new name.
2. Keep names short. Even though you can use long file names in Windows, you should not necessarily do so. Long file names can be harder to read.
=Let your folder structure do some of the naming. For example, rather than creating a file called Great American Novel Chapter One First Effort, you can build a structure like this:
3. Store like with like. Restricting folders to a single document type (or predominantly one type) makes it easier for you to find files. For example, with all of your graphics in a single folder—or in a single library in Windows 7—it's easy to use the slide show feature in Windows Explorer to find the right picture for your newsletter. You can also use libraries in Windows 7 to group files together for easier searching without moving them into the same place or use the Arrange by command to sort files by criteria, such as author, date modified, and type. These criteria can change based on the file type (documents have different Arrange by criteria than photos, for example).
4. Consider storing documents online. You can also keep documents your company’s Microsoft SharePoint 2010 site or on Windows Live SkyDrive so that you can easily access them from outside the office, share them, and edit them online by using Office Web Apps.
8 more tips:
1. Use abbreviations. Keep file names short by using common abbreviations, such as "MTG" for meeting or "ACTG" for accounting. This makes the file names more descriptive, and you can more easily find files through the Search function, if necessary.
2. Use thumbnails or icons. Change the view to display the files as icons in Windows 7 or Windows Vista or search through folders in the Thumbnail view in Windows XP. To view icons in Windows 7 or Windows Vista, click the Change your view button (Windows 7) or the Views button (Windows Vista) in the toolbar, and then select the icons size you want to use. To view icons as thumbnails or icons in Windows XP, click the Views button in the toolbar, and then click Thumbnail or Icons.
You can change the default appearance of your folders so that they always appear in the view you want them to. You can change other folder options, too:
o Windows 7o Windows Vista
3. Use common names. To make it easier to search for documents, name your files and folders with easily found names, such as model numbers, project names, or the project lead in the title.
4. Don't save unnecessary files. Be selective about the files you keep. You probably don't need to keep them all. With email, for example, you don’t need to keep everything you receive.
5. Use Recent Items. To find a file you just worked on, use Recent Items (called My Recent Documents in Windows XP) in the Start menu.
In previous versions of the Windows operating system, Recent Items showed a list of your recently used files on the right side of the Start menu. You could open a file from this list by clicking it. In Windows 7, Recent Items no longer appears on the Start menu by default, but you can add it. To add Recent Items to the Start menu:
o Right-click the taskbar, and then click Properties to open the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box.
o Click the Start Menu tab. Under Privacy, select the Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar check box.
o Click Customize. In the Customize Start Menu dialog box, scroll through the list of options to find the Recent Items check box, select it, click OK, and then click OK again.
6. Put Documents on the desktop. Put a shortcut to Documents on the desktop: Right-click the Documents folder, and then click Create Shortcut. You can save several clicks of the mouse and get where you want to be sooner.
7. Organize files by dates. Use a date in the document name. For example, jeb051810 could mean Jeb’s file from May 18, 2010. If you want to be able to sort primarily by date, you could use the yyyymmdd format, for example, and name the file 20100518jeb.
8. Color-code your folders. Use a third-party program, which allows you to "color" certain folders in Documents. This helps you find your documents even more quickly and is especially useful with folders that you use every day.
