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I've mentioned previously that a PC uses nothing but files to do everything it does. Well, in addition, the files are often grouped into folders. Folders are created to keep files relating to a specific topic together. It's just like most of us do with various papers in a file cabinet. All file names have a name part plus a three or four character extension. The extension is preceded by a dot. In the filename applepie.doc, "applepie" is the file name and the " .doc" is the file extension. Among other things, file extensions indicate what type of software program created the file. File names can be whatever is appropriate but there are some restrictions. No @#$%& characters are allowed in either folders or file names. No spaces allowed in file names. They’re OK in folder names. File names and folder names may contain both upper and lower case characters but I recommend you stick to letters of the alphabet and numbers only. If you use upper case letters, they are significant to the computer. For example, Applepie.txt is not the same as applepie.txt and if you type it wrong, the PC won't find the file you're looking for. To avoid confusion and mistakes, I recommend that you use lower case characters for both folder names and file names and never use spaces or special characters to avoid problems. To separate words or parts of words in a folder or file name use the underscore. For example, fire insurance could be used in a file or folder name as fire_insurance. |
You can use more than one underscore but don't get ridiculous. As a general rule, use no more than three or four underscores. Here's the good news. The file extensions are added by the computer. When you get experience, you'll need to learn more about file extensions in order to assign them yourself. Now that you understand the basics about folders and files, you need to understand what a path is. A PATH, in PC talk, is the description of the location of a file. As an example, look at the following path: The above path describes the specific location of the file applepie.doc on the PC. The backslashes (\) separate the various parts of the path. The C:\ indicates that the file is located in the C: drive. The backslash indicates the end of the drive part of the path definition. My Documents\ is a folder name. How do we know it’s a folder name? Because folder names have no extension. All paths start with the drive identification (like C: or A: or D: etc...) and then identify all the folders and, finally the file. The file is what the path leads to. Every file on your PC has a path definition. Knowing the path definition enables you to find any file among the thousands on your PC. |