- Saving Your Stuff
- The Save Tutorial
- Save It Again, Sam
- Saving the Same File with a New Name
- Saving a File As Another Type
- Saving a File in a New Place
Saving a File in a New Place
A typical PC has tens of thousands of files stored on it. Some of those files are yours. Although finding them can be a challenge, Windows sets itself up with folders in which you can, fortunately, save the things dear to you. (All this stuff is covered in Part IV of this book.)
Normally, Windows stores your documents, without specifying otherwise, in a folder called My Documents. Makes sense.
After working awhile, you might notice that the My Documents folder becomes a crowded place. To cut down on the clutter, you should start saving your documents elsewhere, in new folders for specific projects, for example. All this can be done in any Save As dialog box.
On your way home from the sushi bar, suppose an idea hits you for a flying car. You rush home to jot down your thoughts:
Fire up WordPad.
Write down your thoughts.
Or just type a few random sentences because this section is a tutorial and there's no sense in wasting time being creative here (though if you really do have some keen flying-car ideas, feel free to send them my way).
Choose File—Save As.
The Save As dialog box appears, allowing you to save your stuff. Because this project is a big one—gonna include text documents, graphics, calculations, and grant proposals—it's best that you save all that stuff in a new folder. No point in cluttering the My Documents folder with something really good.
Click the Create New Folder button.
A new folder appears in the Save As dialog box's window (see Figure 3.5). The new folder is named New Folder. That's like naming your dog Dog, but I won't dwell on that.
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Figure
3.5
Saving a file in a new folder.
A. New Folder appears here.
B. Change the name to something more descriptive.
C. Other folders.
D. Search for other places to save your document.
E. Go "up" one folder.
Give the folder a new name, such as Flying Car.
Type Flying Car to replace the text New Folder as the new folder's name. If you make a mistake, press the Backspace key to back up and erase. Press the Enter key when you're done to lock in the change.
The folder now has the name Flying Car.
Important Point
Notice that the New Folder name is highlighted, which is your clue that it can be edited. In fact, anything you type now becomes the name of the new folder. That's always a good idea because New Folder isn't very descriptive (aside from the obvious).
Open the Flying Car folder.
The Save As dialog box displays the folder's contents. Now you're ready to save your file in the new spot.
Type Thoughts 8-01 for the filename.
Press Alt+N to switch the focus to the File Name text box, or press the Tab key. Type the name for your document: Thoughts, which is descriptive, and 8-01 for the date. Note that a hyphen is used for the date because the / character is verboten.
Click Save.
The file is saved in a new folder on disk.
Quit WordPad
Time to take a stand-up-and-stretch break.
It's a wonderful idea to put related files in the same folder.
Part IV of this book discusses folders and file organization in great depth.
The rules for naming folders are the same as those for naming files. See the sidebar "Filenames Good, Bad, and Ugly," earlier in this chapter.
You can use other buttons and controls in the Save As dialog box to save your document anywhere on your computer, on any hard drive, on a network computer, or on the desktop.