Fig 1.1 Click on the START button, to reveal the Start Menu.
| SAVE A FILE |
In this example I will show you how to save a Text file using the text editor (program) called Notepad. So the first thing you need to do is execute (open/launch) Notepad, by following these steps.
Click on the START button, to reveal the Start Menu. In this example you will notice I have previously pinned Notepad to the Pinned-To (left-hand) side of the start menu. This means you could just click on the NotePad icon to open Notepad, but I will assume that Notepad is not pinned to your start menu and therefore will show you how to open Notepad from the ALL PROGRAMS Programs List.
Begin by clicking on, or hovering over, ALL PROGRAMS (Fig 1.2 above) to clear the Pinned-To list of programs and display the
Programs List instead (Fig 1.3 above). The programs list is made up of commonly installed/used folders and files (see
the Start Menu section for more information).
When you first use ALL PROGRAMS the last program (or folder) you used is normally the first program (or folder) to be
highlighted, in blue. This is just your starting point, you do not have to do anything with the first program (or folder)
though. In fact, as soon as you move the mouse pointer over the ALL PROGRAMS Programs List the highlighted program (or
folder) is un-highlighted and the program (or folder) you are now hovering over becomes highlighted. In this example
(Fig 1.3 above) AVG 7.5 is the first highlighted folder.
With the Start menu already showing the All Programs programs list (Fig 1.3 above), and the mouse pointer hovering over
BACK, start moving the mouse pointer upwards until it reaches the folder (yellow icon) called Accessories (Fig 1.4 below).
As you do this each folder in turn will become highlighted as the mouse pointer hovers over it, but only until you hover to
the next folder and then finally reach the Accessories folder. When you reach the Accessories folder simply click on it
(Fig 1.5 below) to reveal what programs (files), and sub-folders if any, there are inside it.
After clicking on the Accessories folder the programs, and any sub-folders, inside it are revealed (Fig 1.5 above). In this
example the programs inside the Accessories folder go from Calculator down to Wordpad (the fourth program down is Notepad).
And the sub-folders inside the Accessories folder go from Ease Of Access down to Tablet PC.
The mouse pointer will probably be underneath the Accessories folder, but regardless of where the mouse pointer is the
Accessories folder will still be highlighted in blue (Fig 1.5 above). So the next thing to do is move the mouse pointer,
four items downwards, until it is hovering over Notepad (Fig 1.6 below). At this point keep the mouse pointer still, whilst
over Notepad, and then click the left mouse button. This will execute (open/launch) the program (text editor) called
Notepad (Fig 1.7 below).
Once the program called Notepad has been executed (opened/launched) you can start typing something into it. For this example, type: This is a File with Text only inside it.
To save what you have typed as a Text File you need to click on notepad's File menu, highlight the SAVE AS menu-item and then click on it.
SAVE AS means "Save As WHAT?". In this case the WHAT will be a Text File with the file name Test. The file will have the .txt file extension attached to it to denote the file is indeed a text file and not a picture file for example. When you select (click on) the SAVE AS menu-item a File Requester appears that you fill in with details about the file you want to save. Like, where you want to save the file to. What the file should be called and so on.
To save a file as a Text file you first need to fill in the File name edit box, by clicking inside it and then typing
a file name (such as Test). When you first use the SAVE AS file requester this edit box will just have the file extension
.txt displayed inside it. So you have the choice of typing a file name only or editing .txt to make filename.txt (Test.txt) - It
does not matter which you do because even if you clear this edit box and then type your file name Windows Vista will add the
file extension .txt later, when you actually click on the SAVE button.
The File name edit box also doubles up as a Drop-Down menu of previously saved file names (files that may or may not
exist). This is in case you want to overwrite an existing file, perhaps because you want to update it and/or just want to
use its name again. To use the Drop-Down menu simply click on its Down-Arrow button, located at the right-end of the edit box, and
then click on one the file names in the list of previous file names - You will need to have the Save as type Drop-Down
menu set to All Files (*.*) in order to see the previous file names, but you can then set Save As Type to Text Documents (*.txt)
again in order to save your file as a Text file (see Fig 1.11 below). Saying this, the file will be saved as a Text (.txt)
file regardless of the Save As Type setting. In Fig 1.10 I selected (clicked on) Research.Txt, which filled the
edit box with the wording E:\Research.Txt. If I then wanted to save the text file, as Research.Txt, I would of clicked on the
SAVE button - This would of saved the text file inside my Flash Disk's main folder called E:\ as a text file called Research.Txt,
overwriting any existing text file called Research.Txt.
When you have filled in the file name edit box you must then make sure the Save as type Drop-Down menu has the file extension Text Documents (*.txt) selected. This will be selected as default (normal) when using Notepad. If you were using Wordpad instead of Notepad the default (normal) file extension would be .rtf (Rich Text Format), in which case you could change the file extension to .txt by selecting .txt from the Save as type Drop-Down menu.
Do not worry about the Encoding Drop-Down menu. It should have ANSI selected, but if it does not (very unlikely) just
click on its Down-Arrow button and then select (click on) ANSI.
Now that you know you are saving some wording (This is a File with Text only inside it) from Notepad as a Text (Text
Documents .txt) file with the file name of Test (file extension .txt) you now have to decide which folder to save the text
file into. At the moment all text files will be saved into the Documents folder, which is a sub-folder inside the UserName
(i.e Yoingco) folder. To change the folder that is used for, saved, text files you need to click on a folder's name from
within the Address Bar in order to see that folder's sub-folder(s) or main folder.
Fig 1.13 above shows that I have clicked on the Side-Arrow button of the Documents folder to reveal a menu of sub-folders
(Cooking, My Received Files, OneNote Notebooks and Updater5). The Side-Arrow button then pointed downwards, as a Down-Arrow
button, before I then selected (clicked on) the Cooking sub-folder (menu-item).
Fig 1.14 above shows that I have clicked on the Side-Arrow button of the Cooking folder to reveal a menu of sub-folders
(Cook Books, Ingredients and Recipes). The Side-Arrow button then pointed downwards, as a Down-Arrow button, before I then
selected (clicked on) the Ingredients sub-folder (menu-item). As you can see, each time I selected a sub-folder it became
the current save folder. In this example, Cooking became the save folder (Fig 1.13) before I then changed it to Ingredients
(Fig 1.14). To go back to a sub-folder or main folder simply click on its name (i.e click on Documents to make Documents the
current folder).
When you are happy with the current settings of File name, Save as type, Encoding and the current save
folder (inside the Address Bar) click on the SAVE button to save the text file. In this example the Text file will be
saved into the Ingredients sub-folder.
Once you have saved the file you may want to update it at a later stage. If so open the file (see the Open A File
section), make your changes and then save the file by choosing the SAVE menu-item from notepad's File menu. Clicking on the
SAVE menu-item means you want to save the opened file in the same place with the same filename, so you do not have to fill
in the File Requester again. This is the difference between SAVE and SAVE AS only. SAVEAS means you want to save the file
in a different place and/or want to change its filename.
You can use SAVE AS like SAVE, if you want to use the File Requester because you are unsure if a file exists for example,
but generally you use SAVE and SAVE AS for the purposes described above.
An alternative way to select a folder is to use the BROWSE FOLDERS button, found in the bottom-left corner of the SAVE AS File Requester (i.e Fig 1.15), which opens up the folders panel. From within the folders panel you can click on a main folder (i.e Documents) or sub-folder (i.e Cooking) simply by clicking on its name. In Fig 1.16 the folders panel is showing the Documents folder as a main (green) folder with its sub-folders (Cooking, My Received Files, OneNote Notebooks and Updater5) in yellow. Slightly inwards are Cooking's sub-folders (Cook Books, Ingredients and Recipes) also in yellow. To make Ingredients the current save folder you would simply click on Ingredients, after opening (double clicking on) any of its main folders. An example of using the File Requester with folders panel is given in the Open A File section.
Microsoft product screen shot(s) reprinted with permission from Microsoft Corporation. As stated here by the Microsoft Corporation.
All HTM files in the yoingco.com folder and its sub-folders are (c) John White, August 3rd 2005 - 2008. All Rights Reserved. FREE Vista Helpline: Contact John