Tips and Tricks-May 2004

Last month, I told you about how to show more details in your directories. This month, we will look at some tools for getting more information about your files. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but if you right-click on a file name (there it is again-right-click) in Windows Explorer, you will see a context menu. At the bottom is “Properties.” Click on it and a dialog box will open with contents that vary depending on the file type.

This is the first tab. Notice all the information that’s available. Not only can you see the file size, but dates it was created, modified and accessed. You can make it read only. You can change the file association by clicking on the “Change” button. You get a list of applications to choose from or you can point to the program that you want to use to open the file by clicking on it.

If you click on the“Summary” tab, you will get:

All of the information in the boxes was entered by me. A year from now I will be able to return the file and have the information I need to identify the file without having to open it. Microsoft Office files will show the author as the user whose name was entered when the applications were installed.

The third tab appears because the computer this file is on is one I use at work and I log into a Novell network. It won’t appear for most of you.

A fourth tab will appear for some files.

The screen on the left shows a set of custom fields available. The drop-down for list give you about 20 choices, including items like “Date Completed” and “Received From” to allow you to show additional information about the file. The summary tab will also change when you view the properties for MS Office files.

The same kind of properties information is available from within Office applications such as Word. You can access the properties from the File menu.

Notice that you can see how many words, pages, characters, how long you’ve been working on the file (in the last session), the revision and more.

Next time you can’t remember which file is the one you last revised or you need to write a term paper with a specified number of words, you have a tool to help you and you didn’t even have to pay extra for it.