Windows Explorer in its simplest definition is the table of contents of a computer.

We can see at a glance, all the drives, folders and files that are contained in the computer, through using the Windows Explorer. A user can organize his/her files and decide which files should go into which folder, create new folders, cut or copy and paste files and folders etc. Also, a file can be copied to or from the floppy disk from or to the hard disk.

How to open Windows Explorer:

Method: Start --- Programs--- Windows Explorer

Windows Explorer Environment:

Folder

Folders are like file cabinets. You can organize your files in different folders as you choose. You can create folders within a drive; sub-folders can be created within a folder.

Creating Folders

Open Windows Explorer. Click on File menu. Click New. Click Folder. This is illustrated in the figure below. The newly created folder is given the name ‘New Folder’ by default. You can rename it with a more relevant name and press Enter.

Delete a Folder or File

As mentioned before, to delete a file or folder is the easiest thing to do in a computer, so be extra careful of what you are deleting.

· Open Windows Explorer

· Click the file or folder you wish to delete

· Press the Delete key of the keyboard

Restoring a deleted file or folder

Deleted files and folders are actually moved to another part of computer har disk, they are not completely erased from hard disk. Deleted files and folders are kept in this separate portion of hard disk, which is called a Recycle Bin. You can restore a deleted file by clicking Restore in the Recycle Bin File menu. If you, however, Empty the Recycle Bin, deleted files and folders will be lost forever.

Restoring Deleted File or Folder from Recycle Bin

· Double Click on the Recycle Bin Icon of your Desktop.

· Recycle Bin window appears

· Click the file or folder you deleted and want to restore

· Click File Menu

· Click Restore

The figure below might make the steps clearer:

Cut, copy and paste

Preface: In our country, especially in Dhaka city, we are all too familiar with postering on the walls. For this, the posters are prepared in the press, then pasted using glue, to the walls. After pasting a poster to a particular place we might change our mind and take it off to paste it somewhere else, or we can make more copies and paste them to other walls. The posturing aspect has amazing similarity to the cut, copy and paste options of a computer application.

For example: if you are preparing a document in the computer using a word processing software, you may come across a need to use the same word or phrase in a number of places. In which case, you can copy this word or phrase and paste it to various places of the document, instead of typing it so many times. You can paste a text as many times as you want after making a ‘copy’. Copy and paste also applies in case of files and folders in Windows Explorer. You can copy a file or folder and make as many copies of the same file in other folders or sub-folders, as you want.

If you want to remove a file or folder from a particular drive or folder and put it in a different folder or drive, just ‘cut’ it and ‘paste’ it to the place you want to put it. Similarly in our example of the document, you can ‘cut’ a word or phrase and paste it to other place(s) which will remove the word or phrase from the first place and move it to the second.

When you cut or copy a file, folder, text or image, it is temporarily saved in a place in the memory called the clipboard. When you click the paste option, the file, folder or text from the clipboard is pasted. This is why you can make exact copies of the same text, files, folders as many times as you wish.

Definitions, Terminology and Method of Cut, Copy and Paste

‘Select’ is the key word in the process of cut, copy and paste. To select is to mark a text, file, folder that must be copied or cut. You can click and drag the mouse to select a text or click a file or folder to select. The selected text, file or folder will take on a different color (commonly black) to indicate a selection.

‘Cut’ as mentioned before, is the process of moving the selected text, file or folder from one place to another. In the Windows Explorer select a file; click on Edit menu or the toolbar and then click the Cut or copy option. In a word processor, follow the same steps.

‘Copy’ is the process of making replicas of a file, folder or text. The selected file, folder or texts remain in its own places and an exact replica is created on the clipboard. Clicking on ‘Paste’ toolbar or Edit-menu option moves this replica from the clipboard to the clicked place.

‘Clipboard’ is the place where the cut or copied information is temporarily stored.

To copy a file to Floppy Disk

· Open Windows Explorer

· Insert a floppy disk into the Floppy Drive

· Select the file you want to copy

· Click the Copy Button on the toolbar

· Click the A:\ drive

· Click Paste toolbar button

File Management

To find important files quickly, you should organize your files in easily detectable folders. For example: supposing there is number of files for the employees of an office, which contains the employee’s personal information, salary, previous experience etc. You can keep these files in a folder named ‘Employee’. Create sub-folders such as Personal, Salary, Experience etc and keep relevant files in those sub-folders. You should take a little time and thought to organize your files and folders, same as keeping organized records and files in an office.

Find a file or Folder

Sometimes it is easy to lose a file among a hundred other similar files. You can use the Find option in the Windows Explorer in such situation. But the catch here is that you must remember something about the file, such as its first 4 letters or last 4 letters or the date it was created or the folder it was created in or its size or some of the text contained in the file.

· Open Windows Explorer

· Click Tools menu

· Click Find

Click on File or Folder option

· A Find dialogue box appears

· Type the info you remember about the file or folder

· Click Find Now Button

Creating a table

Use tables to organize information and create interesting page layouts with side-by-side columns of text and graphics. The quickest way to create a simple table for example, one that has the same number of rows and columns is with the Insert Table

button.

With the new Draw Table feature, you can easily create a more complex table for example, one that contains cells of different heights or a varying number of columns per row similar to the way you use a pen to draw a table.

You can create a new blank table and fill in the empty cells, or you can convert existing paragraphs of text (separated by a character such as a tab) to a table. You can also create a table from an existing data source, such as a database or spreadsheet.

Create a simple table

1. Click where you want to create a table.

2. Click Insert Table.

3. Drag to select the number of rows and columns you want.

1 Click Table Menu

2 Click Insert Table

3 Select the No. of rows and columns

4 Then O.K.

Create a complex table

& Click where you want to create the table.

& If the Tables and Borders toolbar is not displayed, click Tables and Borders . The toolbar appears, and the pointer changes to a pen.

& If the Tables and Borders toolbar is displayed, click Draw Table

& . The pointer changes to a pen.

& To define the outer table boundaries, draw (drag) from one corner to the diagonal corner of the table. Then draw the column and row lines.

& To erase a line, click Eraser , and drag over the line.

& When you finish creating the table, click a cell, and start typing or insert a graphic.

Convert existing text to a table

Ø Indicate where you want to divide text into columns and rows by inserting separators (characters you specify in step 4). For instance, insert tabs to divide columns, and insert paragraph marks to mark the ends of rows.

Ø select the text you want to convert.

Ø On the Table menu click Convert Text to Table.

Ø Select the options you want.

Customize spelling and grammar checking

Spelling and grammar check can be done in two ways:

Ø Short cut ways :

If the mistakes are few and the documents are short : Rules : Identify first the spelling and grammar mistake; red mark for spelling mistakes and green mark for grammar mistakes. Then in the middle of the mistake, bring the pointer and press right mouse button. You will find short cut menus, where the correct words are there. To rectify the errors and replace the correct word, you will simply press left mouse button. If you don't change the incorrect word, you will ignore or in case of adding the word in the customized dictionary, you can press add in the short cut menu.

Ø Correcting Errors In the whole document By 'Tools Menu'' :

In this procedure, you have to click tools menu, then grammar and spelling tab, then you will find a dialogue box where you can correct the word. You have to see the words whether they are wrong, if they are found wrong, you can press change options according to the suggested word placed in the bottom of the dialogue box. On the other hand, if you don't want to change the word, you can simply press ignore options.

To improve the accuracy and speed of a spelling and grammar check, you can set spelling and grammar options and uses special dictionaries. For example, use a custom or supplemental dictionary to check words that the spelling checker doesn't recognize, such as technical terms or text in other languages. Or, use an exclude dictionary to specify preferred spellings for words.

In the next step to perform on spelling and Grammar Check

Select spelling options

l Change grammar-checking options

l create and manage a custom or supplemental dictionary

Specify a preferred spelling for a word

l Skip text during a spelling and grammar check

Select spelling options

1 On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab.

2 Select the options you want.

Change grammar-checking options

You can specify the set of grammar and writing style rules you want Word to use. For example, select a built-in style, such as Casual Communication or Technical Writing. Or, create your own grammar and writing style by customizing an existing style or creating a new style.

Next step for Grammar and spelling

Ø Select a grammar and writing style

Ø Customize or create a grammar and writing style

Select a grammar and writing style

Ø On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab.

Ø In the Writing style box, click the style you want.

Note :

You can customize any of the built-in grammar and writing styles by choosing whether to apply specific rules. You can also create your own custom grammar and writing style. For more information, click .

Customize or create a grammar and writing style

Ø On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab.

Ø Click Settings.

Ø To customize an existing grammar and writing style, click a style in the Writing style box.

To create a new grammar and writing style, click Custom in the Writing style box.

Ø In the Grammar and style options box, select the check boxes next to the rules you want Word to use.

Ø Below Require, select the options you want.

Note

To restore the original rules of the selected grammar and writing style, click Reset All.

Customize or create a grammar and writing style

Ø On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab.

Ø Click Settings.

Ø To customize an existing grammar and writing style, click a style in the Writing style box.

To create a new grammar and writing style, click Custom in the Writing style box.

4 In the Grammar and style options box, select the check boxes next to the rules you want Word to use.

5 Below Require, select the options you want.

Note To restore the original rules of the selected grammar and writing style, click Reset All.

Customize or create a grammar and writing style

1 On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab.

2 Click Settings.

3 To customize an existing grammar and writing style, click a style in the Writing style box.

To create a new grammar and writing style, click Custom in the Writing style box.

4 In the Grammar and style options box, select the check boxes next to the rules you want Word to use.

5 Below Require, select the options you want.

Note To restore the original rules of the selected grammar and writing style, click Reset All.

Customize or create a grammar and writing style

1 On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab.

2 Click Settings.

3 To customize an existing grammar and writing style, click a style in the Writing style box.

To create a new grammar and writing style, click Custom in the Writing style box.

In the Grammar and style options box, select the check boxes next to the rules you want Word to use.

Below Require, select the options you want.

Note To restore the original rules of the selected grammar and writing style, click Reset All.

Create and manage a custom or supplemental dictionary

If you use specialized words that the spelling checker doesn't recognize such as acronyms or proper names you can use one or more custom dictionaries to check their spelling. You can add the specialized words to the built-in custom dictionary or create your own dictionaries; the spelling checker won't question the words again unless they're misspelled.

You can also purchase supplemental dictionaries for example, dictionaries of other languages or medical and legal dictionaries.

Next step for Grammar and spelling

v Create a new custom dictionary

v Add an existing custom dictionary

v Activate and use a custom dictionary

v Add words to a custom dictionary during a spelling check

v Add, delete, or edit words in a custom dictionary

v Remove a custom dictionary

v Use a supplemental dictionary

Create a new custom dictionary

v On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab.

v Click Dictionaries.

v Click New.

v In the File name box, type a name for the custom dictionary.

v Click Save.

Notes

& · Before you can use the custom dictionary to check spelling, you must activate it: In the Custom Dictionaries dialog boxes, make sure the check box beside the dictionary is selected.

& You can now add words to the custom dictionary while you check spelling; for more information, click

& You can also add, edit, or delete words directly in the custom dictionary file; for more information, click .

& Add an existing custom dictionary

The Custom Dictionaries dialog box lists the available custom dictionaries that are stored in your proofing tools folder (usually located in the C:\Program Files Common Files Microsoft Shared Proof or C:\Windows\Msapps\Proof folder). If you want to use a custom dictionary that's stored in any other location, you must add it to the list of dictionaries in the Custom dictionaries box.

Ø On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab.

Ø Click Dictionaries.

Ø If the custom dictionary you want isn't in the Custom dictionaries box, click Add.

Ø In the File name box, enter the name of the custom dictionary you want to add.

Note Before you can use the custom dictionary to check spelling, you must activate it: In the Custom dictionaries box, make sure the check box beside the dictionary is selected.

Add, delete, or edit words in a custom dictionary

v On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab.

v Click Dictionaries.

v Select the dictionary you want to edit. Make sure you do not clear its check box.

v Click Edit.

v Add, delete, or edit the words in the custom dictionary.

If you're typing words, press ENTERS after each word to put it on a separate line.

v When you finish editing, save your changes by clicking Save .

v Close the dictionary file so that it will be available the next time you check spelling.

Note When you edit a custom dictionary, Word turns off automatic spelling and grammar checking. After you close the dictionary file, you can turn on automatic spelling and grammar checking again. For more information, click .

Specify a preferred spelling for a word

To specify a preferred spelling for a word (for example, "gray" instead of "gray"), add the unwanted version of the word to an exclude dictionary. The next time you check spelling, the spelling checker will question the word so you can change it to the version you want.

v Click New .

v Type the words that you want to put in the exclude dictionary. Press ENTER after each word.

v On the File menu, click Save As.

You must save the exclude dictionary in the same folder that contains the main dictionary (usually located in the C:\Program Files Common Files Microsoft Shared Proof or C:\Windows\Msapps\Proof folder).

v In the Save as type box, click Text Only.

v In the File name box, type a name for the exclude dictionary.

Make sure to give the exclude dictionary the same name as the main language dictionary it's associated with, except use the file name extension. exc. For example, the English (United States) dictionary is called Mssp2_en.lex, so name the associated exclude dictionary Mssp2_en.exc.

v Click Save.

v Close the file so that it will be available the next time you check spelling.

Steps: You can also use this procedure to find correctly spelled words that you want the spelling checker to question (for example, if you often type "widow" when you mean to type "window"). After you add "widow" to the exclude dictionary, the spelling checker will question it the next time you check spelling.

Skip text during a spelling and grammar check

To speed up a spelling and grammar check, you can prevent Word from checking specialized text for example, a list of product names or text in another language.

Ø Select the text that you don't want to check.

Ø On the Tools menu, point to Language, and then click Set Language.

From this option, you can enrich your text by selecting alternatives, antonym and synonym of the words in the customized dictionary.