Susan C. Daffron

Award-winning fiction & nonfiction author

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October 27, 2005 By Susan Daffron

Speedy File Paths

As most people have figured out by now, I have a large hard disk with a whole lot of folders. Yes they are organized, but even though I’m sort of a neatnik when it comes to my hard disk, navigating around can be sort of a pain. This tip comes from the nerd in the next office who was standing like a vulture over my desk watching me navigate through my hard disk one day.

Suppose for example, that I’m working on a file that’s located in C:projectnerdystuff. I modify the file and want to save the new version into D:morenerdystuffnewproject. Navigating to the correct directory and saving the file there actually takes quite a bit of time. If you’re working on a lot of files, the problem is magnified. For whatever reason, I do this type of thing a lot. As the vulture nerd watched me go through this process, he sort of shook his head and asked, "why don’t you just copy the path?"

As I’ve written before, if you have the address bar showing in Windows Explorer, you can copy the path out of one Windows Explorer window and paste it into a document or into another Explorer window to navigate to a particular place. (If the Address Bar isn’t showing, choose View|Toolbars|Address Bar.)

Anyway, I use this trick all the time. But what the nerd pointed out is that you can copy the path into dialog boxes as well. If I want to do a Save As to save a file with a new name, in the File Name box, I can paste the path and then type the file name, which is faster than browsing my hard disk to the new location.

To try out this technique, follow these steps. Open Windows Explorer, navigate to the folder where you’ll be saving files and click in the Address bar to highlight the path. Now press Ctrl+C to copy the path. It is now stored on the clipboard. When you go to save a file in the new location, choose File|Save As like you normally do. Now press Ctrl+V to paste the path into the File name box. Type your new file name at the end of the path and click OK.

Filed Under: Logical Tips, Windows Tagged With: Windows

About Susan Daffron

Susan Daffron is the author of the Alpine Grove Romantic Comedies, the Jennings & O'Shea mysteries, and multiple award-winning nonfiction books, including several about pets and animal rescue. Check out all her books on her Amazon Author page.

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