Document Management
The PathSmart and SaveSmart Modules
Summary:
Everything has to be somewhere. Finding what you want on your computer is sometimes a major problem. Putting a new document where you want it so that you can find it again is another. Understanding what is happening on your computer when you save or recall a document is yet another. This page actually is devoted to the latter. It begins with a bit of computer basics, which you may skip over if you don’t need or want the ‘why’s”. Following that are the “how’s” on how Pathagoras can (and will) make your computing life a bit easier in finding, creating, saving and organizing your Word documents.
Definitions:
The following definitions are somewhat lengthy. However, they will be helpful to you as I attempt to explain how Pathagoras fits into the picture. If you are an experienced, old fogey computer geek with no sense of humor, just skip over this stuff and jump to here. But if you are a stunningly handsome/ beautiful computer user with a great personality and mind like a steel trap who needs just a little bit more information on how computers operate, this is for you:
'Drive': This is a noun, not a verb. A drive is thing on your computer that can read or write things in electronic code onto other things. The other things written to are typically disks. You probably have three types of drives on your machine: (1) a floppy disk drive (2) a hard disk drive and (3) a compact disk.
'Disk': A disk is one of the things in your computer that is spun around by a drive. The drive 'head' floats over and, when appropriate, barely touches the disk at certain locations as it reads from or writes to the spinning disk.
'Directory' or 'Folder': All programs, documents, pictures and other files are stored ('written') onto various 'places' on a drive. For purposes of this discussion, these places are called folders or directories. These names are used interchangeably, and again for purposes of this discussion, mean the same thing.
(*Technically, files are not actually written to a physical location on your disk called a 'folder' or a 'directory.' The disk operating system really just writes the files on a track of the disk wherever it finds room. It has a complex routine for keeping exact track of where on the disk the file was encoded. This routine is the essence of the "folders and directories" discussed in the above paragraph. It is best not to think about how the routine works, just be grateful that it does.)
This whole 'storage' concept is like the file cabinet in your office. The cabinet is akin to the disk--everything goes into the cabinet (disk); the drawers are like the directories; the alphabetized manila folders inside the drawers are like sub-directories. The main directory is called the "root" directory. It is generally assigned a single letter, and that is how you recognize it as the "root". The characters "C:\" stands for the root directory on your main hard disk drive. 'A:\' stands for your floppy disk's main directory. You may also have "D:," "E:" and more disk references.
'Sub-Directory': I am certain you have seen the 'My Documents' and 'Program Files' folders on your computer. These folders contain files (documents, pictures, databases, programs, etc.) that your computer (or you) uses frequently. 'My Documents' generally will contain things that you create (letters, spreadsheets, etc.). 'Program Files' typically will contain, well, programs, and perhaps other files that someone else created and sold to you, or that came with your computer when you bought it.
Except for certain files that were shipped with Windows, nothing is really required to go anywhere. Most people typically put their 'self-created' documents into 'My Documents' because that made sense to do so at the time. More specifically, most people do so because (1) Word defaults to that folder, (2) most people do not change the default and (3) most people think that they are not allowed to put documents anywhere else. But you can put documents elsewhere, and anywhere you darn well please. You can put documents into 'Program Files.' and program files inside of 'My Documents' (or anywhere else). Even the names of these folders are not important. They were just arbitrarily picked by Microsoft and accepted for use by developers and most users. (Universal acceptance is somewhat of a good thing, unless you think you are bound by it.)
While you should probably not rename or mess with your 'Program Files' directory, you can (and probably should) add more folders to your 'My Documents' folder. Or add more folders anywhere you wish which makes your life easier. This is what more experienced users do as they organize and segregate their files by subject matter to improve their productivity.
For purposes of this discussion, what you really need to know about the 'My Documents' and 'Program Files' folders is that each is a sub-directory of the root directory. Any directory "beneath" the root directory is called a sub-directory. There can be an unlimited number of sub-directories on a computer. There can be an unlimited number of sub-sub-directories within a sub-directory, and so on. There also can be an unlimited number of file cabinets (root directories) in a network.
The downside is that as a sub-sub-directory is added to a sub-directory, the path names associated with the documents which are stored in the sub-sub-sub-directory become that much longer. (See the next section for a fuller discussion of "path"). Despite the length of the path names, however, adding sub-directories is generally a good thing. Why? Because it allows you to better organize your documents, which in turn allows you to find them more easily on your computer (again, the same reason why certain file cabinet labels break the 26 letter alphabet into sub-sub parts. Dividers are not available just for "A", "B" "C", but you can buy them for "Aa-Ad", "Ae-Al", "Am-Ar", etc). It is always better to keep your documents in well organized and categorized places (Yes, Kris, I know you always tell me that about my desk!) using the smallest reasonable sub category possible. Of course, seeing this kind of address to a folder:
"C:\My Documents\Business Letters\Large Corporations\Widgets Inc\Requests for Proposals\"
scares most novice users. (It scares me too, and I just made it up.) Pathagoras was designed to ease those fears. Pathagoras, bless its little ol' heart, reduces all of that stuff to just a single digit. So you can have your cake and eat it too. Just don't eat it over the keyboard.
'Path:' The address of a file in a directory is called its path. It is the same as "the long name of the directory or sub-directory in which a particular file has been saved," but that is too hard to say. 'Path' or 'address' is simpler. When you store documents in the folder called 'My Documents', the path (address) to that folder is "C:\My Documents" (You start at the C: root directory, add a backslash, and then the name of the directory or subdirectory.) As you create more and more documents, or otherwise have more files to save, it would make sense for you to create a sub-folder or two under the 'My Documents' folder. That way, you can begin to segregate your writing by type or topic, and move not related files to more appropriately titled folders. A typical sub-folder you could add to the 'My Documents' directory would be called "Personal Letters"; another might be "Business Letters." The respective paths to these folders would be "C:\My Documents\Personal Letters" and "C:\My Documents\Business Letters." Slashes always separate the folders from the next level folder or sub-folder. In the example that I have provided, the formal path name is the entire mess of characters from "C:\" to "Letters", including the slashes.
Whether you see it or not (or realize it or not, or like it or not), the name of every document on your computer is prefixed by its path. You think that your document is called "Letter to Mom", but it is really called
"C:\My Documents\Personal Letters\Letter to Mom.doc"
Pretty ugly, isn't it. (Not Mom, the name.) This is the explanation for how you can have several documents on your computer which have the same name. So let's assume that David writes a 'Letter to Mom' (hint, hint) and saves it in 'My Documents' (Word's 'default folder'). Then Michael comes along and writes a 'Letter to Mom' and saves it to the same folder. Michael's document will overwrite David's. That wouldn't bother Michael at all, but it might really tick off David, especially if the competing documents weren't just "Letter to Mom" (which may have already been printed and dispatched), but rather was "Long, Complex Resume of My Life Sent to Potentially High Paying Employers.doc". Oh, if only David had created a sub-directory under "C:\My Documents" called "\Davids Stuff and I'll kill you Michael if you set foot in here\", and saved his resume there. Then Michael's resume would not have overwritten David's similarly named document.
To summarize the above paragraph: what distinguishes documents of the same name in the 'mind' of the computer is the path (the address) to the document. That way, documents of the same name but in a different folder can reside on the same computer. They really don't have the same name at all. (Any more than Gloria Smith of Jacksonville, Florida is the same a Gloria Smith of Norfolk, Virginia) Their addresses (their 'paths') are different.
The "path' in 'Path'agoras derives from a document's address that quietly prefixes its name to allow it to look nice. But please pronounce it 'pa-THAG-oras', not 'PATH-a-GOR-as'. It is a gentle play on the name of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras. If you want to know more, click here.)
When you hunt for a file (or a place to store a file) using the typical click up, down and across method, you are signaling the computer to add (as you click 'down' the folder tree) or take away (as you click 'up' the tree) the address which makes up the path. (By the way, and you may have already noticed this, the 'folder tree' is upside down as we typically picture trees.) Once you decide where you want to store the document (which you tell the computer when you press 'Save') the current address (path) is stamped onto the document's name as a prefix. This prefix provides the computer a path to a specific location so that it can quickly find a particular file.
Only humans have to physically navigate to get where they want to be. (Your mail carrier needs to walk up and down streets to get to a particular house address. When you drive to the store, you follow the roads. My son may not, but that is a different story.) And because of that, you think you need to click up and down the computer's streets to get to a particular file. But you do not. If you give your computer the full address of a document, including the long, scary, complex path name, your computer can self-navigate the paths and instantly pull up the desired document. "But," you say, "I cannot remember the long, scary, complex path name!" That's okay, Pathagoras does that for you. All you need to do is pair the long, scary complex path name with a number, and you never have to 'mouse-walk' to it again.
"Remote," "distant" or "far away": As used in these pages, these distance-type terms do not refer to geographical distance. They refer only to the number of mouse clicks it takes you to get from "here" to "there." "Here" is your default directory, the one that always shows up when you click on FileOpen or SaveAs. "There" is wherever else you want to be (when your document is not in the default directory, or when you want to save your document in a reasonable location NOT the already overcrowded "My Documents"). On some setups, it may take only 5 or 6 mouse clicks to get to a directory on a network computer located in an office building miles away. On the other hand, it may take 10 or more mouse clicks to access a desired folder on your local drive. The fewer the mouse clicks, the "closer' the directory. The more it takes, the further away it is. Here is a picture of what I am talking about.
Word always takes a minimum of 3 mouse clicks and usually some scrolling to get to a sub-directory on a parallel level to your beginning point. Pathagoras never requires more than 2 or 3 mouse clicks to get to any mapped directory or sub-directory on your computer or your network. It never requires any scrolling to find a particular directory. When finding a document, or saving it, Pathagoras always saves you time.
Details
(Actually for this page, the details were in the definitions. But here is more helpful information to help you get started):
A summary for those who didn't read the definitions: Microsoft® Windows tried to make things a little easier on the novice user when it developed the concept of the 'My Documents' directory as the default repository for all user created files. You can store all of your personal stuff (documents, spreadsheets, pictures, etc.) in one place, while your program files reside somewhere else. However, as you (or your office) becomes more and more computer dependent, the "My Document" directory becomes bloated with hundreds, maybe thousands, of documents, spreadsheets, pictures, etc. Finding what you are looking for then becomes a real challenge. That's when you need to look at a different method of organizing your filing system. You should consider adding a few sub-directories beneath the My Documents folder (or scrap My Documents altogether and use a folder name that makes sense to you). Place documents of like kind in the various sub-directories. Consider moving pictures and spreadsheets into their own sub-directories. (SaveSmart can help you to move documents more methodically than Word or even Windows' file management tools. SaveSmart allows you to open a document, read its content so that you can decide where it better belongs, and while it is displaying, to move to a new folder. Windows does not allow a 'move' of an open document.)
Assigning your first paths to numbers.
When you installed Pathagoras, you were given the opportunity to practice assigning SmartPath numbers to folders. Hopefully you took advantage of that opportunity. If not, you can rerun the Setup program found on "C:\Pathagoras" and practice the exercise. But that is optional The steps are easy:
- Press the PathSmart button (the 'runner' icon).
- Select a number to which you want a particular directory associated.
- Click the "Set Path (#)" button. Choose Option "1" (manually set the SmartPath) and follow the prompts.
An alternative method of mapping a SmartPath is to begin with a document that you know exists in the folder you want to be mapped as a SmartPath. Follow these steps:
- Open the document.
- Press the PathSmart button (the 'runne'r icon).
- Click on a number to which you want assigned to the folder (for this exercise, you must select a blank entry), and answer "Yes" to the question "Do you wish to 'quick set' the SmartPath?"
- When the next menu appears, choose Option "2" ('Set the path to the folder of the underlying document.')
- Confirm the selections by accepting the defaults. Give the path a nickname. That's it.
Some other users actually know the full DOS name of the path they want to pair to a number. For you, Pathagoras really has something special. Following this model, just type on a blank line of any Word document the number you want to assign a SmartPath to (1-12), a colon, and equal sign, the full DOS pathname, and the keyboard combination <ALT-G>. E.g.
4:=c:\data\office documents\forms <Alt-G>
Couldn't be easier. (Just think of the text as standing for "Path 4 equals c:\data\office documents\forms"). If the directory does not exist, Pathagoras will even create it for you.
Navigating to a folder using Pathagoras.
Click on the PathSmart icon (the runner). Click on the number-button of the path you desire to display the contents of the folder in the dropdown listing in the center of the screen. Click on the long nickname button to display the actual folder. That's it. There are advanced display options and other features available on the PathSmart screen, but the best one is still the ease of simply clicking on a button for the desired directory. (Actually, maybe this is only second best. This, IMHO, is the real best. Go to a blank screen. Type a SmartPath number (1-12) of the desired folder. Press <Alt-G>. There is your directory! Do it again with a different SmartPath. Now that is neat.)