Windows XP for Starters: The Missing Manual: Exactly What You Need to Get Started

5.7. 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 you've opened the document recently, choose its name from the Start My Recent Documents menu.

• If you're already in the program that created the document, choose File Openor 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 their names to reopen them.

• Type (or browse for) the document's path and name into a folder window's Address toolbar.

The Open dialog box looks almost identical to the Save As 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 youre 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 Enter.

In general, most people don't encounter the Open dialog box nearly as often as the Save As dialog box. That's because Windows offers many more convenient ways to open a file (double-clicking its icon, choosing its name from the Start My Documents command, and so on), but only a single way to save a new file.