Page 377 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

GEM IN THE ROUGH WHY YOU SEE DOCUMENT
NAMES IN THE SAVE AS DIALOG BOX

In the Save As dialog box, Windows displays a list of both folders and

documents (documents that match the kind you’re about to save, that
is).

It’s easy to understand why folders appear here: so you can double-click

one if you want to save your document inside it. But why do documents
appear here? After all, you can’t very well save a document into another
document.

Documents are listed here so you can perform one fairly obscure stunt:
If you click a document’s name, Windows copies its name into the “File
name” text box at the bottom of the window. That’s a useful shortcut if

you want to replace an existing document with the new one you’re
saving. By saving a new file with the same name as the existing one,
you force Windows to overwrite it (after asking your permission, of

course).

This trick also reduces the amount of typing needed to save a document
to which you’ve assigned a different version number. For example, if

you click the “Thesis Draft 3.1” document in the list, Windows copies
that name into the “File name” text box; doing so keeps it separate from
earlier drafts. To save your new document as “Thesis Draft 3.2,” you

need to change only one character (change the 1 to a 2) before clicking
the Save button.

But a Windows dialog box is elaborately rigged for keyboard control. In
addition to the standard Tab/space bar controls, a few special keys work

only within the list of files and folders. Start by pressing Shift+Tab (to shift
Windows’ attention from the “File name” text box to the list of files and
folders) and then do the following:

Press various letter keys to highlight the corresponding file and
folder icons. To highlight the Program Files folder, for example,