As I have said before, backups are important. Exactly how important is up to you. How upset would you be if your computer broke, and you lost all of the information on it? Photos, letters, funny pictures, invoices, receipts, notes. All of it. If the answer is not “There is nothing there that I need” then you need backups.
My previous Article showed how to do Manual backups, but as people are forgetful, and put things off, I shall also explain how to set the Windows 10 Automated Backup.
You Will Need:
An external hard disk, with lots of spare capacity (how much will depend upon how much data you have, but 1 Terrabyte/1,000 Gigabyte is usually sufficient.)
An hour to read this Article and set up your Backup.
To Begin:
The Settings Icon
Connect your external drive. This is usually done via a USB cable. Most desktop computers have USB sockets on the front. Laptops have them positioned at the sides, or sometimes the back. It may take a moment or two for the PC to recognise the drive. It may chime to tell you that it has been detected.
If you open File Explorer, and use the Left-hand Navigation Pane to go to “This PC”, the drive should be displayed in the main screen. Now that we have confirmed that the Drive exists, we can close File Explorer.
Update and Security
Now, we go to the Windows 10 Settings screen. Click your START Button to see the Menu, and click on the “Settings” icon. This will open a new Window, with many Settings available. Take a glance, to see what sort of things you are able to alter, and find the Icon labelled “Update and Security (Windows Update, recovery, backup)”. This is where we find the backup Settings!
Three Little Symbols
I like to make sure the Settings Window fills the entire screen. To do this, as we learnt previously, you can click the “Maximise” square int he top right of your Window.
Setting up the Backup
On the left of the Update and Security window is a list of different areas we can change. Today, we want “Backup”. Click on it.
You should now have the Backup Settings screen. AS you have not used this External Hard Drive before, you will have to “Add a Drive”.
Adding a Drive
Clicking the Add a drive Icon will produce a list of available disk drives. You should be able to identify your External Hard disk on this list, and click on it.
You should notice the “Add a drive” button has now changed! In its place is an “Automatically back up my files” switch. You can switch this On or Off by clicking on it. We want it On!
The backup is now set!
We could leave it there, but you may wish to check the “More Options” area, to see what is happening.
More Options
Backup Options
This area allows you to fine-tune your backup settings. It is perfectly OK to leave it alone, as Windows 10 has pretty good default settings. But let’s take a look anyway!
Overview – This gives us some details of the Drive we are using.
Back up my files – sets how often to do backups.
Keep my backups – you can set for older backups to be deleted. I do not recommend this! Keep them forever!
Back up these folders – There should be a losy of which folders Windwos has decided to back up. Look through this list, to make sure that the folders you need are there! This would usually include: Documents, Pictures and Desktop. If you also store Music or Videos, check that these folders are listed. There will be other folders listed, and it is best to keep these.
Back Up Now!
Now we are happy that the back up settings are correct, scroll to the top of the Window and click the Back up now Button!
How long this will take depends upon how much data you have. I would suggest leaving your PC for at least an hour to ensure that the files are successfully copied to your backup drive.
You can continue to use your PC while it is doing backups.
Editing photographs may sound like a tricky proposition, more the concern of professional photographers than Mere Mortals. But do not be dissuaded. There are some very simple techniques that can vastly improve your experiences.
Reducing Size (Resize)
Modern Digital Cameras, even the lesser varieties built into Smart Phones, produce high quality images. And when we hear the words “high quality”, we should always be aware that this also means “high memory usage”. A more detailed photograph takes up more Memory than a less detailed one. You have probably seen cameras advertised as “12 Megapixels”, “20 Megapixels” etc. Now, we know from our Glossary that that Mega means 1,000,000 (or 10^6). Pixels are the “dots” that make up the picture. The more “dots”, the higher quality the image, but also the more Memory the image takes up (as the computer has to record the colour of each separate “dot”.
If you wish to email several photos to someone, you may find that your email provider balks at the idea of including multiple high-memory files. We can get around this by reducing their quality. If the pictures will be viewed on a Monitor, this will not cause any problems.
Searching for the paint app
Go to the Search Bar on your Task Bar, and type “Paint”. This will bring up a menu, headed with the “Paint” program (or App). Click on it to open the Program. From the “File” menu (top left), select “Open”, and find your File. You will probably notice that you can only see a small amount of the image!
Move to the View ribbon (This is the “Paint” ribbon, very similar to the File Explorer ribbon, but with dedicated Paint functions) and select “Zoom Out” until you can see the whole image. This will probably be Two Clicks.
Note that we have NOT altered the image yet! We have just changed the way we are looking at it!
Now look at the Home ribbon, and find “Resize”. Click to open the “Resize and Skew” Window. (We are not interested in Skewing our photograph today!).
We are looking to reduce the Image to about 1/3 of the original, which will
Resize and Skew Window
reduce its memory Size to almost a tenth of the original size! Make sure that “Percentage” is selected, rather than telling Paint to use a particular number of Pixels. Enter “30” into the Horizontal box. Assuming that the “Maintain aspect ratio” box is ticked, you will see the Vertical box adjust to the same figure you entered into Horizontal (unless you would like to “squish” the image by reducing one dimension, but not the other!). Click OK, and you will see that the image shrinks! Go to View -> 100%, and the image should just about fit on the screen.
Go to File -> Save As , and save your edited photo using a new name (I often just add “-small” to the end of the existing name).
NOTE: If you use “Save” rather than “Save As…”, or do not alter the file-name, you will over-write the original photo, and never be able to use the full-quality version again!
If you now close Paint, and open File Explorer, you can navigate to your Photo, and see that you have 2 versions. The original, and the edited one. Hovering over them will show you a Tool-Tip, including the Size. You should notice that the edited one is approximately 10 times smaller! All that saving, for a tiny reduction in quality (that will never be noticed, unless you zoom in to look at details).
Reducing Size (Crop)
Another way of reducing the Memory size of an image is to reduce what is in the image! You can trim off the edges of an image, to focus on the actual subject!
Again, open Paint, and open your Image.
Tim Toady* rears his head again, and suggests the you try opening File Explorer, right-clicking on your File and Choosing Open With -> Paint
Select and Crop
On the Home ribbon, you should see “Select”. Click here, and the Mouse Pointer will change to a Cross (You may often see the Pointer change, to reflect the current Tool or Function! Keep an eye on this!). You are now able to select an area of the image by Dragging the Cross, and letting go when the Frame is in the right place. If you make a mistake here, do not worry. Nothing has been changed! You can click on a blank area outside of the Image to clear the selection. Now click “Crop”, and watch the image change, removing the areas outside of the selection!
Again, use File -> Save As, give the file a new name (I add -crop to the end) and you have saved a copy that takes up less space!
A good use for this “Cropping” is to remove unwanted parts of a picture! For example, my picture of the Fox’s Glacier Mints plaque has far too much brickwork! I crop it to make it just the plaque!
Just the PlaquePlaque
Rotation
Sometime you will open an image to find it is on its side, or upside-down! Do not despair! You will not have to ask your audience to lie on their side, or do handstands to view your pictures!
Open the image in Paint (Tip: Once you have it visible in the Search menu, as described above, right-click it, and select “Pin to Taskbar” so that it is easily-available at the bottom of your screen!).
The Rotate Button
On the Home ribbon you will see the “Rotate” button. Clicking here will give you a menu to choose from. Select the required option (or keep selecting ones, until the image is the correct way up!), and then Save As.
Practice
As always, it is a good idea to practice these techniques, to become familiar with them, before moving on to more advanced features!
Open up File Explorer. Across the top of your window there should be a selection of buttons. This is the “Ribbon”. Selecting each of the “Titles” (Home, Share, View) will change which Buttons are available. This Article will be focusing on the “Home” Section. (“View” is explained in this article).
If you do not have the Ribbon showing, try clicking the “Show/Hide Ribbon” button at the top right of your window)
Show or Hide the Ribbon using this button!
Now, onto the Features:
Pin to Quick Access
This button is rarely used, but can be helpful if you use a particular Folder a lot. Select a Folder, and click here, to “Pin” that Folder to the Quick Access area of the Navigation Pane.
What does that mean? At the top of the Navigation Pane (left-hand section of File Explorer) is a Section containing links to your Main Folders (Documents, Pictures, etc), and you can add other Folders here, so that they always show up, giving you Quick Access to them!
Cut/Copy/Paste
These buttons will Cut or Copy the selected Item, or Paste the contents of the Clipboard into the current location. More detail of how this works can be found in my previous Article.
Two extra features are the “Copy Path” and “Paste Shortcut” buttons.
Copy Path
Instead of Copying the actual Item you have selected, this will copy the Location of it (as displayed in the Location Bar near the top of the window).
e.g. If I select my “CTRL-X Man” picture, and click “Copy Path”, I will enter the location to the clipboard, which I can then Paste into a Document:
(Notice that it uses the Full Path, starting from the Drive Letter (“C:” for my main Hard Drive), rather than the truncated version used in the Location Bar)
Paste Shortcut
The Shortcut Tag
Again, this deals with the Location of an item rather than the Item itself. Select an item and Copy it. Move to a new Location, and Paste Shortcut to create a Link to the original Item. This does not create a new copy, and you should notice the “Shortcut” tag on the Icon, showing that it is a Pointer, or Shortcut to the actual Item.
Here we note that the Ribbons are organised into Sections. We have just dealt with the “Clipboard” Section, as titled below the Buttons. We now move to the “Organise” Section.
Organise
Move To/Copy To
In Windows 10, Microsoft have provided yet another way of moving/copying our Files around.
Select your Item(s), and click one of these buttons. You will be presented with a list of potential Locations to choose. If you cannot see the Location you wish to use, then look at the bottom of the list, where you will find “Choose Location …”. Clicking here will present you with a Mini-Explorer, which you can use to find the desired Location.
Delete
This will Delete the selected Item. Actually, it will move it into the Recycle Bin, where it will stay until that is Emptied. This does give you a chance to retrieve Items that are accidentally deleted.
NOTE: Deleting a Folder will delete all of the contents. Any Files and/or sub-folders inside the deleted Folder will also be deleted!
Rename
Blue Highlights
By selecting an Item, and then pressing this button, you can Rename either a File or Folder.
The item’s Name will gain a Border, and highlight in blue, indicating that it is ready for you to type the new Name.
New
The “New” section deals with adding new Items. As dealt with in my previous Article, there is a button for creating a New Folder.
There is also a Menu called “New Item”, which gives a list of Items you may wish to create e.g. Word Document, Bitmap (picture) file, spreadsheet etc. As this always creates a Blank version, I find it more useful to open the appropriate Program to create a new File.
The Easy Access menu is also one I would not recommend using just yet. Familiarise yourself with how the Explorer system works first.
Open
The only useful button here is “Properties”. Select an Item, and click this, to open a new window that will display quite a list of properties about it, including File Size, Date Created, Modified, and Accessed, and other useful information.
Select
“Select All” does what it says on the tin. It selects all items in the current location.
“Select None”. Ensures that no Items are selected.
“Invert Selection” can be occasionally useful. e.g. If I want to delete all Items apart from my CTRL-X-Man picture, I can Select CTRL-X-Man, and Invert Selection so that everything except that file are selected, and then click Delete!
ToolTips
Tool Tip
You may have noticed that when you “hover” your mouse pointer over a button, a little box appears. These boxes are called “Tool Tips”, and give you Tips about the Tool you are thinking of using! They usually display the Name of the Button you are hovering over, the Keyboard Shortcut (if any), and a brief description of the Function. They can be very helpful for quickly looking along a Menu or Ribbon, to see what Tools are available!
Finally
So why not take another look at your Home Ribbon! You may find some features that you never knew were there!
Do you find the Ribbon Buttons easier than CTRL-keys, or right-clicking? Or are you a Keyboard Fan, and use the Mouse as little as possible? Does the F10 key get used?
Why not let people know what you prefer! Maybe you can win over some converts!
One tool we haven’t touched on yet in these articles is “Drag and Drop”. Or any of the uses of “dragging”. So, here we go:
“Dragging” is to place the mouse-pointer over something, hold down the button, and then move the pointer. Release the mouse button to “Drop”.
There are several uses for this, and we shall be looking at a few of the more common ones.
Moving Windows
You can move a window around the screen by dragging its Top Bar. To try this:
The “File Explorer” Icon
Open a File Explorer window.
Make sure it is “Restored”, rather than “Maximised” (Click the “Squares” button in the top right, until it does not fill the whole screen).
Now, place the mouse pointer somewhere near the top of the window, in the middle. You will want to be just a couple of millimetres from the top of the window.
Hold down the left mouse-button.
Keeping the mouse-button held down, move the mouse around the screen (Drag).
You should see the window Follow your mouse, as you Drag it around!
Let go of the Mouse Button (Drop). The window will now stay where you leave it!
Try dragging a window to the edge, or top of the screen! Notice how it does something slightly different? Dragging windows to the sides will resize them to exactly half of the screen, leaving room for another window in the other half. Dragging to the top will “Maximise” the window, filling the whole screen, just as if you had pressed the “Squares” button (top right).
Moving Files
While we have File Explorer open, lets see what we can do with Files.
Go into your Documents folder. Hopefully you have a file or two in here. Choose one to run this exercise with.
Hover the mouse pointer over the file. Hold down the left button, and then move the mouse. You should see the file, or a “Shadow” of it, follow your pointer.
For now, move back to where you began, and release the button (drop), while we look at what we can do with a Dragged file:
Drag and Drop
If you have a sub-folder in your Documents Folder, you can drag files into them by dragging them ‘over’ the sub-folder, and dropping them. This is useful for organising files. If you have several related files, you can create a New Folder, and drag all of the files into it.
You should see the “Tool Tip” appear, alerting you to what action will be taken when you Drop. Here, we see it will “Move to House Files” (the sub-folder).
You can also Drag onto the Navigation Pane. Maybe you saved a photo into Documents, but realise that you would like it in Pictures. Drag and Drop it there!
If you have more than one File Explorer window open, you can drag files from one window to another. This can either be done with “Restored” windows (partly filling the screen), or “Half-windows” (by dragging to the edge of the screen, as noted above).
Moving Icons
Icons, grouped as I like them
On the Desktop, you can Drag you Icons around, organising them in groups of similar Programs.
Opening With Paint
You can also drag a data-file (such as a photo, or text document) over the Icon for a program, and Drop it on that Icon, to open the file using that program. This can be useful if you have more than one program (e.g. I can edit photos using Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, or Paint).
So There We Have It
Several uses for Drag and Drop.
If you find Dragging difficult, you can practice by using the Microsoft Solitaire Collection to play some card games, as these require you to Drag cards around to play the games! You may think you are wasting time, but you are actually learning!
Now you can arrange your desktop, and organise you files!
Let me know what you find Drag and Drop useful for!
Documents Folder, with many Files and Folders in it
If you remember our earlier Article, you will recall the sections of the File Explorer window. Here we will examine the left-hand menu, or “Navigation Pane”, to give it its proper title.
The “File Explorer” IconThe Navigation Pane
So, open your File Explorer, Maximise it (the “Squares” button at the top right) to fill the screen, and take a look at the Navigation Pane. If you do not have the left-hand menu, try clicking “Navigation Pane” on the View Ribbon, and ensuring the entry “Navigation Pane” is ticked!
Now, What you will see is a list of Folders and Locations. From this list, we can easily navigate to any area of our File Structure that we wish!
So, let’s have a look at what we have:
At the top will be “Quick Access”. This lists your Main Folders (Desktop, Documents, etc), plus your most recently accessed Folders. You can add or remove folders from this area, but for now, we can leave it as-is.
We then have One Drive, the Microsoft online Cloud Storage. This will be discussed elsewhere.
And then, “This PC”. Here, again, we have a list of the Main Folders, and then any Disk Drives attached to the computer. “C:” is your System Drive, and may be titled “OS” (for Operating System), or “Windows” (for that is the Operating System you are using), or some other label. You probably have a DVD Drive, which will be shown here (Mine is the H: Drive, and currently has “The Settlers IV” Game CD loaded). You may also have other drives, such as USB Flash Drives, or External Hard Drives.
Network and Homegroup are for if your PC is connected to other computers on your network.
So what can we do?
Sub-Folder Tags
I’m glad you asked!
The main use is to navigate quickly from one location to another. Try clicking on “Pictures”. You should notice that the Main Window now displays your Pictures Folder, and the Navigation bar (above the Main Window) shows “This PC > Pictures”. Now Click on “Documents”. And “Pictures” again.
We can also explore sub-folders. Move your mouse over the “This PC” section, and you should see some “>” tags. These show you that the Folder has Folders inside (beneath) it. Clicking a tag will show you these subfolders!
My Music collection is not very extensive, but this shows the structure of my Collection. My Music includes some audio from the BBC (namely Dr Who episodes), some Heather Nova, and a whole bunch of sound effects!
The keen-eyed amongst you will have noticed that tags of folders that we can see inside (such as “Music”, and “bbc audio”, in this case) are pointing downwards, and also their contents is slightly indented.
That’s All Folks!
That is pretty much all there is to the Navigation Pane.
It is a useful tool for moving around your folders.
If you prefer to recover your screen real-estate, you can switch it off using the View Ribbon > Navigation Pane button!
Do you find it useful? Which folders do you use it to jump between? Let us know!
Computers (and the people who program them) try to be very efficient. So when dealing with the myriad types of data that are needed to be stored, they find different ways to store different data.
Photo Files need a lot of information about exact colours, and the exact location of each pixel. “Writing” documents (such as you might make in Word) record which letters are Capitals, and where the paragraphs are. Spreadsheets have mathematical calculations (often just adding a list of numbers!).
So, the different types of Files are stored in particular Formats (or “types”).
You have probably come across files such as Letter.doc, MyPhoto.jpg, MailAttachment.pdf etc.
The bit after the dot (doc, jpg etc) is called the “File Extension”, and signifies what type of File it is (or more correctly, what Format the file uses to store its data).
So what do they do?
If you are selling your house, you may write a description of it, for the Estate Agent. And they’ll want a photo. You may keep a spreadsheet of the finances involved. You could easily end up with a list of files like this:
house.doc
house.jpg
house.xls
house.pdf
Which one is which? Well, from our Summary article, we can look up some of the more common File Formats.
Also, Windows will have a program associated with each File Format, and in File Explorer, each file will be displayed with an Icon of that program.
Different File Format Icons
Note: Windows File Explorer will often show Picture Files as Previews of that picture, as we can see here.
We can easily see that each File has a different Format, by its Icon. That Icon will match the Icon of the associated program.
Icons of some Programs
When you open a File, Windows will check what Format it is, and find the associated program to use. e.g. my system has .doc files associated with “Libre Office Writer” (notice the similar blue icons). You may have “Microsoft Office Word”. The program will open, and display the file.
The programs, such as Word, do not store your files! They can Save your files into the Windows File System (“Documents Folder”, etc), but you do not have Files “in Word”. You have “Word Files” in “Folders”.
Summary
File Formats are used by the computer to store data in an efficient manner, and for both you and the computer to tell what “type” a file is.
They determine what program will be used to Open the File (along with its associated Icon).
There are many, many Formats. Some are quite common (.doc, .jpg, .mp3), while others specific to particular Programs (e.g. .skp Files for storing 3-dimensional information in SketchUp 3D Designer).
Have you seen any rare file types? Do you use custom software with its own special Formats? How do your Icons differ from those presented in this article?
Over the years, I have seen so many people lose data.
Wedding photos, baby pictures, invoices, tax and payroll data, love letters, and schoolwork.
I lost all of my University work (luckily after I had finished!), along with quite a lot of notes and pictures I had made.
Never again! Not on my watch!
There are so many simple ways to back up your data, that I have started using the phrase “If it isn’t backed up, it isn’t important data“.
So, to avoid the Wizard’s wrath, what can you do?
Commercial Solutions
Norton backup, Apple iCloud, Google Drive, Micrososft OneDrive, PC World Knowhow Cloud. There are many.
Most are perfectly good enough, and this article is not a review of Cloud Services.
Local Storage
You have probably heard of USB Memory Sticks and External Hard Disk Drives.
These are Local, as they are in the same building as your PC (as opposed to across the street (Off-Site) or on some other side of the Internet (Remote).
They are connected to your PC via a USB plug. Sometimes with a cable, sometimes not. Windows doesn’t really care. It is on the USB Socket.
So, if you could nip and get one. It may be in your sock drawer, or under the sofa, or possibly still at the shop. Memory Sticks are not expensive (~£20. 32 or 64GB), although the significantly-larger-capacity External hard Disks are a touch pricier (£50-£100 and more. 500GB+)
Go get one. I can wait. I have plenty of work to be doing.
New High Score!
Oh, hi. You’re back! OK, lets get this data backed up!
Doing the BackUp, Just Like We’ve Learnt
Plug in your Storage Device (USB Stick or External Hard Disk)
You may get a notification from Windows that you have done this. For my method, we ignore this.
The “File Explorer” Icon
Open File Explorer, and check that your Device has been recognised. You should have an entry in the Navigation Pane. If you do not see it, click on “This PC” to view all of your Drives. It may be labelled “USB Drive (E:)” or may have the manufacturer’s name.
Once we are happy that we know where the drive is, we then need to Copy all of our Files to it.
While you are in “This PC”, you should have a list of your Default Folders at the top of the page. Select Documents. Choose to Copy it (Note, we do not have the usual Ribbon here, so you will have to use right-click > Copy, or CTRL-C).
Now that the Documents Folder is on the Clipboard, select your Storage device, and Paste (right-click > Paste, or CTRL-V).
A Progress Window will appear to show how the Computer is getting along with Copying it. This will either be very brief, or quite a long time (My folder can take an hour or more, but it is HUGE! Yours is likely to be done in a minute or two). When done, the Window will disappear.
Confirm that the Data has been Copied, by going into your Storage Device, checking that a Documents folder exists, and then looking inside that to see that your data is there.
Go back to “This PC” and repeat for any other Folders you may wish. Usually this will include “Pictures”, and also Music and Videos, if you have anything in these folders.
Always Safe Eject!
When this is finished, DO NOT UNPLUG YOUR DRIVE YET! Always use the Safe Eject command! Click on the Safe Eject icon, at the bottom right of the screen, by the Digital Clock (This is called the “Notification Area”, by the way). You will get a menu, and you can click on “Eject <name of your device>”. Once you get the Confirmation message, you may safely unplug your device.
Summary
Now, that looks like quite a task, but I shall summarise it briefly:
Plug in Device
Open File Explorer
Navigate to “This PC”
Confirm that device is detected.
Select Documents folder. Copy/Paste to Device.
Repeat for other Folders.
Confirm Data transfer.
Safe Eject device.
Unplug Device
You may now put your device away somewhere safe and secure.
You are Backed Up!
For now …
Presumably, you will, at some point, take more photos, write more letters, save more interesting stuff from the internet etc.
Every now and then (the more often, the better), update your BackUp by following through the exact same procedure we have just done.
PLEASE let me know if you have any problems following this.
Or let me know what back up solutions you have used, for good or ill.
Everyone’s computer will be set a little differently, and with everyone having different Files and Folders, you can expect your screen to look slightly different from the examples given here, and from your friends’ and neighbours’ screens.
Firstly, as so wisely instructed by the late, great Douglas Adams:
Don’t Panic!
Look for the similarities, rather than the differences. You should have the main features available.
As we are focusing on Appearance, it would be well to be able to see the View Ribbon. Most PCs will have this set by default, but if not, there are two ways to show it.
CTRL-F1. (We learnt previously about holding the Control key, and tapping another key. This Command uses the “Function One” key, labelled “F1”, the very top row of your keyboard).
“Expand the Ribbon” button. As shown here, the small ‘arrow’ at the top right of your Window will show or hide the Ribbon.
Show or Hide the Ribbon using this button!
Now we can see our Ribbon, let us take a closer look at the Tools available on it.
Click on the “View” tab, to show the viewing tools.
The “View” tab
Notice that the Ribbon is split into sections. Each section has its name beneath it. See from the above image that the “Panes” and “Layout” sections are visible. (You should also have other sections.)
Each section has a group of tools that perform similar functions. Let us take a look:
Panes
The File Explorer window is split into several sections, as we have seen. The Ribbon and Location Bar at the top, and below that, the Navigation Pane and the Main Section.
As you can see from the Ribbon, there are other “Panes” available. Click on each of them to view or hide them.
Navigation Pane
We have briefly looked at this. It provides shortcuts to move between different Folders. It will usually have your Default Folders (Documents, Pictures, Music, etc), and a set of “Recently used” Folders.
Preview Pane
When this Pane is visible, it will appear on the right-hand side of your screen.
If you select a File (by clicking once on it), the computer will attempt to show you a Preview of the File.
If you have the Layout set to “Medium Icons” or larger, then the Icons will also show this preview. The Preview Pane is more useful when you have Layout set to Details, or List.
Not all Files are capable of showing a Preview, and the Preview Pane will inform you if you have selected such a File.
Details pane
This Pane will appear instead of the Preview Pane, at the right of the screen.
When you select a File, this Pane will display some extra information about the File, including when it was last modified, how much space it takes up, and more, depending upon what type of file it is.
This information is similar to that shown when using the Details Layout, so is more useful if you are using the Icons Layouts.
All of these Panes may be Hidden, by clicking their Button on the Ribbon, if you prefer less “clutter” on your screen.
I very rarely show the Preview or Details Panes, but you may find them useful.
Layout
The Layout section
In this section, we can control how we view the Icons in the main section.
Hover over each of the choices, and the icons will show that style. They will revert back if you move away, or you can set them to the style you prefer by Clicking the style you like.
“Large Icons” and “Extra-large Icons” can be useful if your folder contains a lot of Images, as you will be shown a Preview without having to open each file individually to see what it contains.
“Details” will show you some extra information about each file.
“List” is good for fitting a lot of Files and Folders on the screen at once.
Have a practice at changing between these styles, and choose one that you like.
Personally, I move between Large Icons and Details, depending on which Files I am working with, but you should use the style you are happiest with.
“Details” Style.“List” styleExtra-Large Icons!
Current View
The “Current View” tools can be used to change the order that your Files and Folders are displayed in.
Sort By
This tool, as its name suggests, will allow you to sort your Files in a variety of ways. Clicking the button will show a menu of options, including Date, Name, Type and more.
The “Sort By” Menu
By Default, Items are arranged by Name, with Folders being shown first, and then Files. You can change this to arrange in other orders, and as you can see from the Menu, in Ascending or Descending order (so that you can have “Newest First”, or “Oldest First”, for example).
Group By
This tool allows us not just to order our Files, but to split them into groups, making it easier to differentiate between them.
The best way to explain this is to show you an example:
Files Grouped by Type
As you can see, all of the .pdf files are now together, and all of the .bmp files are next to each other, separated into “Groups”.
This, like Sort By, can be done by Name, Date, Type, etc.
This can be a very useful tool if you are organising your files. e.g. You can Group By Date to put all photos taken on a certain date together, and Shift-Click them (remember how we hold SHIFT, click the first file we want, then keeping SHIFT held, click the last file, to select all of these files), to Cut and Paste into their own folder.
(The other tools on this section are not needed at the moment, and we shall not be discussing them)
Show/Hide section
These tools will alter the way some things are displayed.
Item Check Boxes
If this is switched on, then hovering over an item will reveal its Check Box. Clicking this box will Select that item.
This can be useful for selecting Multiple items, rather than CTRL- or SHIFT- clicking.
File Name Extensions tell you what Type each file is.
For example, I have three files associated with a 3d modelling project, all with the same name! The previews are very similar.
With the Extensions viewable, I can easily see which is the Project File (.skp), which is the BackUp file (.skb), and which is a snapshot of the project (.jpg, an Image file).
Files, with Extensions showing!
Hidden Items
Some files are marked as “Hidden”. Usually these are System Files, that you would not want to change, move or delete. By making sure that this box is NOT ticked, you will not be able to see or affect these files.
There are circumstances where these files will want to be available, but I would recommend that you keep them Hidden.
Hide Selected Items
You can choose to mark Files as Hidden, and they will not be displayed unless you Tick the previously mentioned “Show Hidden Items” box.
I Strongly recommend that you do NOT do this.
There is very little reason, outside of System Diagnosis and Repair that you would want to do this.
Options
A long, complicated list of Advanced Options.
Probably best to ignore.
Practice, Practice, Practice!
You can now adjust your Display to the way you like!
Have a try with some of the Layouts and Groups (notice the “Group By > None” option, to remove the groupings!)
Don’t worry if you get it wrong. These tools do not actually change any Data, just the way the items are shown to you. It can all be changed back easily.
Do you like List View, or Large Icons? Do you use the Preview Pane?
Why not let me know how you prefer your Screen Display.
In my previous Articles, we learnt how to View and Move Files.
We have mastered the View Ribbon, and gained familiarity with the Cut/Copy/Paste commands (using either the Ribbon, the right-click menu, or the CTRL keys).
Cut Copy Paste
Folders
The first way of moving Multiple Files is to move the Folder they are in.
If the Files you wish to move are all in one folder, you can Cut (or Copy) that Folder (the same as you would a File), move to the desired location, and Paste it there.
For example we may have a Pictures folder that looks a little like this:
Pictures Folder
And we realise that “Selfies” are all “Photos of Me”, and would like to move them all.
As before, when working with Files, we can select the Selfies folder (single click to highlight it) and then choose “Cut”.
Remember that we can Cut using one of the three methods:
Click “Cut” on the Home Ribbon
Right-Click the File and left-click “Cut” on the Menu that appears
Hold the “CTRL” (for “Control”) key on the bottom left of your keyboard and tap the “X” key. (This is usually written as “CTRL-X”. We remember “X = Cut” as it looks a little bit like a pair of scissors!)
Now that the Selfies folder is on the Clipboard (this is the special area of Computer Memory where Cut/Copy items are held), we can go to the desired location (“Photos of Me”) and Paste it in using one of our methods:
Click “Paste” on the Home Ribbon
Right-Click an area in the folder and left-click “Paste” on the Menu that appears
Hold the “CTRL” (for “Control”) key on the bottom left of your keyboard and tap the “V” key. (This is usually written as “CTRL-V”)
Our structure should now look like this:
Selfies of Me!
Tip: When pasting into Folders, we can save a little time and a few clicks. Rather than go into the destination Folder, and Paste, we can Paste directly onto the Folder Icon. This takes a little practice, but can be worth learning.
Select the item (File or Folder) to move. Use the Cut function.
Select the Destination Folder, but only single-click, to highlight it. Now Paste (using any of the three Methods. If right-clicking, make sure to right-click ON the destination folder).
Selecting Multiple Objects
We will not always have our files nicely organised in Folders like this (hence the need to learn how to organise them!)
There are several ways to select a Set of files. Once we have Selected them, we can Cut/Copy, and then Paste, as before.
All the Files
Select All
If you wish to Select All of the files in a folder, you use the Select All Command. And again, TIMTOWTDI! Remember our friend Tim Toady? There Is More Than One Way To Do It! You may start to see a pattern to the different methods:
Click the “Select All” button on the Home Ribbon
Hold the CTRL key, and tap A (For “All”).
You should notice that all Items (Files and Folders) become Selected. You may now Cut or Copy them, before moving to the Destination Folder to Paste.
Continuous Files
If the Items you wish to move are all together in the list (e.g. photos that were all taken on the same date, or files that begin with the same letter), then they can be Selected as a Set.
Use the View Ribbon > “Sort By” to arrange the items.
Click on the first item that you want from the List, to highlight it.
Hold Down the SHIFT Key on your keyboard. (This may have an Upward Pointing Arrow on it).
The SHIFT Key
While still holding down Shift, click the last item that you require from the list.
Release the Shift Key.
You should notice that all of the required Items are now highlighted!
Selecting all of my Fashion Pictures!
Now that the required Items are highlighted, you can Cut or Copy them, find the Destination, and Paste them.
All Over The Place
If you want to select a few items, that are not together in the list, then you can Control-Click!
What do we mean by that?
Holding down the CTRL Key, click on each of the Items. When you have them all, release the CTRL key.
This can take a while to master, but is worth knowing.
TIP: You can CTRL-Click after using Select All, or Shift-Click! For example, if I only wanted the Fashion pictures with Single people in, I could Shift-Click (reminder: Hold SHIFT, click the first one. Continuing to hold SHIFT, click the last one, then release SHIFT). Now that they are highlighted, you can CTRL-Click (hold down CTRL, click on item, then release CTRL) to de-select the picture with a Couple in it!
I suggest you practice some of this. Select multiple Items, and try cut/copy/pasting them around. Re-read these articles, and try to become familiar with the different methods, to see which you prefer.
None of the methods are better than the others. Remember, Tim Toady! (There Is More Than One Way To Do It!)
I won’t be there when you Cut/Copy/Paste – CTRL-X Man!
As I am always telling my customers, the “Best” way to do it is the way that YOUare happiest with!
If you like The Ribbon, use it. Or if you prefer CTRL-X/C/V, use those. Right-clicking more your thing? Go for it!
I think that will do for now!
And remember: Practice, Practice, Practice!
If you are still struggling, leave a Comment, and I shall endeavour to find you a solution!
