If you're like most computer users, you regularly create a number of files. Things like letters, spreadsheets, Web pages, presentations, and more. And you probably have files scattered all over your hard drives. As you create more and more files, finding, using, and organizing them rapidly becomes a difficult and time-consuming chore.There are a number of ways in which you can manipulate and organize your files, as well as decipher the various file extensions you encounter.

What Do All Those Extensions Mean?

There are literally dozens of file extensions. Extensions are the three letters after the name of a file that identify the function of the file or the application in which it was created or can be edited. But with the number of file types out there, knowing what each extension means or the application with which it's associated can be tricky.Windows Explorer (often just called Explorer) is the default Windows file manager. One of the features of Explorer is the ability to customize how you view files and folders. The default view is a list showing the names of the files and folders on your computer. You can display more information by selecting Details from Explorer's View menu. This shows not only the name and extension of a file, but it's size, the date and time at which it was last modified, and it's type (for example, an OpenOffice.org Text Document).

Some people find this view to be very cluttered. Instead, you can use Windows Explorer to find excellent information on files and their extensions. Choose Folder Options from the View menu, then click File Types. The window that appears contains list of all the types of files Windows recognizes, listed not by extension but by the name of the file type. So, you see “Adobe Acrobat Document” rather than “PDF”. If you click on a file type, information on its extension and the application that opens it appears.

File Associations

Of course, memorizing what individual extensions mean takes a little time. Luckily, Windows understands file associations. This means that files that were created or can be edited in a particular program know what that program is. There are two easy ways to determine file associations. The first way is to open Windows Explorer and navigate to the directory containing the file with the unknown extension. Double click the file. It should open in the application with which it's associated. The other way to determine the association is to look at the icon beside the file name, which should be the icon of the program with which the file is associated. If the icon is just the flying Windows symbol, then the file isn't associated with a program.

You can create an association in Explorer by right clicking on the file and choosing Open With. This opens a window containing a list of programs installed on you computer. Choose a program from the list. If you want to use that program to open files of that type in the future, select the Always use this program to open this type of file option.

Managing Your Files

Files rapidly accumulate on your hard drive. If you're like most people, your files are scattered across your hard drive. Some are in logical places. Others aren't. With a little planning, you can centralize your files.The key is two folders: one named My Documents and the other named My Images. These are (or at least should be) the default repositories for your documents and graphics. Don't just dump your files these folders. You should create sub-folders for the different types of files you use. Under My Documents, you can create a folder called Docs for your word processor files and one called Web for your Web publishing projects. Apply the same logic to the My Images folder.

If you download a lot of files off the Internet, use the My Downloads folder for those files. Check your Web browser’s online help to find out how to point the browser to My Downloads when grabbing online files.

Finding Files

Even if you’ve organized your files, you can't expect to know where all of them are. As you collect more and more files, finding them becomes a chore.

The Windows Search utility is a useful little tool for tracking down those hard-to-find documents. In Windows Explorer, right-click a folder in the left-hand pane of Explorer. Type your search criteria, and then click Find Now. For example:

• Type *.htm to find all HTML files.
• Type letter*.doc to find all Word documents whose names start with "Letter".
• Type *index*.* to find all files whose names contain the word "index".

The names of the files that match your search criteria appear in the search window. You see not only the name of the file, but also the path to the folder containing the file, the type of file, and its size. Double click the file to open it.

Moving Files

There will come a time when you’ll want to copy or move from one folder on your PC to another. This could be because you created a document in a temporary folder, or want to put a file you downloaded from the Internet into a different folder.

The easiest ways to do this are to use the Copy and Cut commands in Explorer. Right click on the file you want to transfer then select Copy (to make a copy of the file) or Cut (to move the file and delete the original). Navigate to the directory into which you want to place the file, right click, and choose Paste. If you need to copy or move multiple files, just click on the files while holding down the CTRL key. To select all the files in a folder, press the CRTL and A keys. From there, copy or move the files to the desired folder.

Renaming Files

Being able to rename files can also be very useful. You might want to change a file name to make it more descriptive, or to point out that one file is an older version of one you’re currently working on. You can rename a file by right clicking on it in Explorer and choosing Rename. Then, type a new name for the file. Just remember that file names can be up to 255 characters long, including spaces. However, a file name cannot contain the characters * : " ? < > | /.

This works well for one or two files, but if you have a large number of files you want to rename, doing it manually will take a long time. Luckily, you can automate the process. There are a number of freeware file renaming utilities available. Use your favorite search engine to find one of these utilities

Organizing and maintaining your files can be a chore. But with a little planning and work, you can cut the effort involved in working with files down to a minimum. You'll have one less computing headache and, we hope, your use of Windows will become a little more efficient.