Computer Information

Save a File Name Fast

There’s a little trick you can use to save some time when you’re going to save a file that you’re working on. If you’ve already typed the name that you want to use somewhere in your document, you can copy and then paste it in.

Select the text first by dragging over it or using another selection method. For this example, we’re selecting the text Mad Dog’s Party Ideas.

Choose Edit, Copy or one of the other four ways that you can use to copy.

Choose File, Save or File, Save As (the first time that you are saving a file, it doesn’t matter which one you use).

Click on the location that you want to save it in, if it isn’t the default location (the one that the computer gives you).

If the default name that your program shows in the File name text box is NOT highlighted, you need to select it. Click in the white area of your File name text box to the right of the default name, then hold down your left mouse button and drag back over the name so that it is selected. If you start your dragging to the far right side of the text, you will never end up with just part of your text selected.

You will not need to delete the selected text, because pasting over it will replace it.

Hold down your Ctrl key on your keyboard and tap the v key, and the name that you selected to use will be pasted to the File name text box. Click on the Save button or tap your Enter key to save.

(Note: Clicking your right mouse button and selecting Paste from the menu that appears only works some of the time, but this method works every time).

Note: If you’re used to letting the program that you’re using create a name, you may have noticed that it will generally stop wherever there is punctuation. This method fixes that problem, easily including commas, apostrophes, hyphens, etc. Do be aware, however that there are certain symbols that cannot be used in a file name, like colons, question marks, diagonal slashes, and others.

Note: Remember to save often, to prevent your work being lost unexpectedly through unexpected problems like power outages, toddlers you find the power on/off button on your power supply attractive, or gremlins.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 11:13 am and is filed under Resource. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.