Quick Computer Tips

Use the My Places bar to make it easier to find your files and to make it easier to save them.

How do you use it? Say that you're working in Microsoft Word, and you want to find a Word document that you stored on your desktop. On the File menu , click Open . Then click the Desktop icon on the left side of the Open dialog box.

All the Word documents on your desktop are displayed in alphabetical order in the dialog box. Click the document you want to open and then click Open .

To look in other places for your Word documents, click My Recent Documents , My Documents , My Computer , or My Network Places .

Click the Desktop icon to display the Word documents stored on your desktop.

All the Word documents are displayed in alphabetical order.

To use the My Places bar to save documents, click Save As on the File menu, and click the icon for the place where you want to save the document. Then click Save .

The My Places bar is in every Office program. But not every Office program has the My Places bar in the Open dialog box. To learn more about the My Places bar, read Microsoft's Help topic, Add a place to store your files .

Make the My Places bar your place by adding shortcuts to any locations you'd like. For example, if you have a folder that you open every day, add its shortcut to My Places. When you need to open a document from that folder, or save a document to that folder, just click that shortcut.

You can add up to 256 folders to the My Places bar, but you can't add files to the bar.

Here's how:

On the File menu, click Save As .

1. In the Save in list, click the drive, folder, or Internet location that contains the folder for which you want to create a shortcut in the My Places bar.
2. Click the folder you want to add to the My Places bar.
3. On the Tools menu of the dialog box, click Add to "My Places" . Your shortcut appears in the My Places bar. Click the down arrow on the bar to see the folder you've added.

Choose a folder in the Save in list.

The My Places bar.

Click the Tools menu, and then click Add to "My Places".

Click the arrow on the My Places bar to see the folder you added.

To delete a shortcut you've added, on the File menu, click Save As . On the My Places bar, right-click the shortcut you want to delete, and then click Remove .

It's your place. Make yourself at home. On the File menu, click Save As . On the My Places bar, right-click the item that you want to move, and then click Move Up or Move Down .

The change you make in the My Places bar in one Office program will be made in all the My Places bars in all Office programs at once.

On the File menu, click Open . Then click My Recent Documents in the My Places bar. The most recent documents you've worked on are in the top of the list. What could be easier?

The icons come in two sizes: small and large. To change the size, on the File menu, click Save As . Right click the My Places bar, and then click Small Icons or Large Icons . The icon size you choose will be displayed on all the My Places bars in all Office programs.