Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual

The Open Dialog Box

To reopen a document you’ve already saved and named, you can pursue any of these avenues:

• Open your My Documents folder (or whichever folder contains the saved file). Double-click the file’s icon.

• If the document was opened recently, choose its name from the Start→My Recent Documents menu. (If you don’t see this command, simply install it as described on Section 2.12.)

• If you’re already in the program that created the document, choose File→Open—or check the bottom of the File menu. Many programs add a list of recently opened files to the File menu, so that you can choose its name to re-open it.

• Type the document’s path and name into the Start→Run box or into a folder window’s Address bar.

The Open dialog box looks almost identical to the Save dialog box. The big change: The navigational drop-down list at the top of the window now says “Look in” instead of “Save in.”

Once again, you start out by perusing the contents of your My Documents folder. Here, you may find that beginning your navigation by choosing Look In→My Computer offers a useful overview of your PC when you’re searching for a particular file. Here, too, you can open a folder or disk by double-clicking its name in the list, or by pressing the keystrokes described in the previous section. And once again, you can press Backspace to back out of a folder that you’ve opened.

When you’ve finally located the file you want to open, double-click it or highlight it (from the keyboard, if you like), and then press ...