LESSON THREE: MANAGING FILES continued
D. The New Menu
When you right click on your desktop and choose new, you
can create
a new document immediately on your desktop - a text document,
wordpad document, or other kinds of documents as determined by
the programs installed on your computer. Editing the New Menu to
add documents or programs that aren't listed involves editing the
Windows Registry a task too complex for an introductory lesson.
However, you may want to use the little-known Marks New Menu
Technique for accessing any document file from your desktop...
HOW TO CREATE ANY NEW FILE ON YOUR
DESKTOP
a) Right click your desktop and choose text document.
b) With new text document highlighted, change the name, using the
extension of the program you wish to use.
c) Double click to open the document. If a message appears asking
you if you wish to convert the document format,
click o.k.
d) Create your document, and save it in your chosen format.
E. The Send to Menu
In Windows, you can send a file to any location on your computer
- a drive, a directory, your fax, your printer, your zip program, the
recycle bin, Quikview etc. To access send to, simply right click
on
your file icon, and choose send to.
By default, send to only lists a few locations. But by making shortcuts
to locations you wish to use and by placing them in the shortcuts
folder of the Windows directory, you can add them to the send
to
list. You will learn how to create and use shortcuts in the next lesson.
F. Using Quikview
Do you ever want to glimpse at a file on your system without taking
time to open the program that runs it? If so, you can view "rough"
versions of many of your documents in Quikview, which contains
thirty file viewers for viewing different kinds of documents.
Most programs installed on your computer will enable Quikview. If
not, you may enable it yourself within My Computer by choosing
view, options and selecting file types. Here, you can select
a file type
that you wish to view, and check enable Quikview. for that type.
How do you access Quikview in order to use it? Simply right click on
a file and choose Quikview. Once the file is open, you can choose
to
edit the document within its application by selecting file, open file
for editing.
In the next lesson, you will learn how to create shortcuts so that
you can easily access frequently used programs and files from your
desktop, your START menu, or through send to. (If you want to make
a shortcut for Quikview, you will find Quikview.exe in the viewers
subfolder of your
Windows system directory.
PRACTICE EXERCISE
1. Right click your desktop and choose new, text document.
Change
the file name to picture.bmp.
2.Double click your new file to open MsPaint. Close without saving.
3. Open your Windows directory and double click on the SEND TO
folder. Note which options are already there.
4. Right click your Computer Maintenance file and choose send
to.
Note which options already reside within send
to, and which
don't. Don't send to now - click on your
desktop to cancel.
5. Right click your Computer Maintenance file and choose Quikview.
6. In Quikview, choose file, open file for editing. After you have
viewed your file, close Notepad.
NEXT: Windows File Formats
continue
|
|