Writing Program

Using Microsoft Word to Write Papers

Saving and Managing Files and Documents, or, A Network Drive is Good to Find

 

How Do I Save Files and Documents to my Home Directory?

NOTE: You must be logged in to the network as yourself in order to perform this operation. If you have login problems contaxct the Helpdesk.

Here are two ways to save files to your Home directory.

 

1) Saving and Managing Files with Windows Explorer:

If you have an existing file - for example, a Word document you have brought to campus on a floppy disk - the easiest way to transfer it to your Home directory is to use a program called Windows Explorer (not the same as Internet Explorer). Windows Explorer is specifically designed for managing files (it used to be called File Manager) and is very useful for organizing all sorts of files and folders.

 

To launch Windows Explorer, you can right-click on the Start button, which opens a short context Menu, and then click on Explorer. Or you can go to Start, Programs, Accessories, Windows Explorer. When Windows Explorer opens, you will notice that it has a Title Bar, Menu Bar, and at least one Toolbar as well as a pull-down dialog box menu entitled Address. Below the Address dialog box you will see two panes, one on the left and one on the right. The left pane is the Navigation Pane; it displays all of the locations available to the user on the computer or workstation. Clicking on any of the folders in the Navigation Pane causes the contents of that folder to be displayed in the right hand pane. Clicking on the plus sign next to a folder in the Navigation Pane opens that folder in a "tree" format within the Navigation Pane. The Address dialog box also controls which folder is displayed as open in the right hand pane.

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Windows Explorer will let you create storage folders within your Home directory that will help you organize your documents electronically. To do this, use the Navigation Pane to select your Home directory, which should show on the "tree" as your user name and server name, followed by an H, next to a drive icon. Once you click on this link, the right pane should display the contents of your Home directory (if the drive is empty the pane will be blank). Now go to File, New, Folder to create and name a storage folder within your Home directory. You can call this folder Papers, or Fall05, or Creative Writing - any title that will help you identify the content. Once the folder has been created, you can use Windows Explorer to place existing documents in it, or you can save active documents to that folder from within a program like Word (see Saving Files from Word).

 

Windows Explorer will allow you to transfer existing files and folders in several ways. You can click on a file in the right hand pane and drag it to a new location in the Navigation Pane; you can also select a file or folder and use the Copy and Paste commands the same way you would in any other Windows program. Each of these operations will create a new copy in the new location while leaving the original behind.

To copy an existing file from your floppy disk, CD, or portable storage media to your Home directory, first insert the disk in the computer's drive or USB port and select the drive link in the Navigation Pane (or from Address) so that the drive opens in the right-hand pane of Windows Explorer. The contents of the floppy should then be displayed in the right-hand pane of Explorer. Now scroll down in the Navigation Pane until you see the icon for your H: drive, and click the plus sign + beside the H icon to display your folders. You will notice that the right pan continues to display the contents of the floppy, CD, or USB drive. Now you can simply click and drag or Copy and Paste the file you want to move. The advantage of this method is that you don't have to bother opening your document to copy it.

To rename a file or folder using Windows Explorer, simply right-click on the file icon in the right-hand pane of Windows Explorer and choose Rename from the drop-down menu. This will allow you to type in the new file name in a fill-in box directly under the file icon. Clicking anywhere outside the fill-in box will confirm the change. You may need to use the Windows Explorer's Refresh button to view some changes.

 

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2) Saving an Open Document to your Home Directory

NOTE: You must be logged in to the network as yourself in order to perform this operation. If you have login problems contact the Helpdesk.

 

Whenever you create a new document in any Windows program, or open an existing document, you can choose the save location for that document. The default save location for Microsoft Word is usually a file on the C: drive called My Documents. However, this option is not viable for users on public network workstations. The fastest way to save a single Word document that you create on any public networked computer is to use the File, Save As Menu Bar option to change the Save location for the individual document. The Save As dialog box allows you to use a pull-down dialog box menu called Save In to select a destination folder for your document. You will notice that the first time you save a document using any command, the Save As dialog box opens, giving you the option to change the destination folder as well as to name the document. Once you have selected the destination, all future Save operations for that specific document will be to this location.

 

If you are just beginning to use your Home directory for document storage, you can either use Windows Explorer to create storage folders in your Home directory before you create documents, or create new storage folders in an open document from the File, Save As dialog box. To create a new storage folder from within the File, Save As dialog box, click on the New Folder icon to the right of the Save In pull-down dialog box menu (the New Folder icon looks like a file folder with a star on it. Clicking on this icon will open the New Folder dialog box, allowing you to type in a name for your folder. Make sure that this dialog box has a line that says Current Folder and that the label under that line begins with H:, indicating that the folder you are creating will be on your Home direcory. Once you name your new folder and click Okay, the New Folder dialog box will close and the Save In location in the Save As Dialog Box will change to indicate the new folder as your destination. You can now click Save to save your document to the new folder.

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If you have a single-user workstation (typically limited to faculty) you can change the default Save location for all your Word documents to your Home directory. To do this, launch Word and go to Tools, Options; this will launch the Options dialog box for Word. Click on the File Locations tab in this dialog box and select Documents from the File Types and Locations dialog box. Click the Modify button to open the Modify Location dialog box. Now you can use the pull-down dialog menu to choose your Home directory as a new default site for saving your documents. You will still need to use File, Save As to select a destination folder within the Home directory, but changing the default will make sure that your document ends up on your Home directory even if you forget and simply choose Save. However, since this change is local (takes place on the hard drive) it does not travel with the user profile but stays with the specific workstation, so it does not work for labs and public areas.

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