Did you know you can view your PC files in a variety of ways? A lot of folks are not aware of the Views icon, so let talk about it!
Windows has reserved the My Documents (or Documents) folder for your use. It is easy to create new folders and move files. You should organize your PC's data and know where to find files. It is no different than organizing your filing cabinet at home.
This brings up a tall menu, shown below, listing the various ways that the files in the active folder can be seen. We'll discuss each view below.
How do I see my files in Windows?
You view and manage your files and folders in Microsoft Windows by using My Computer or Windows Explorer. We recommend Windows Explorer and explain why in one of Keynote Support's "Windows for Beginners" tutorials: Using Windows Explorer to Manage and Organize Your Data.Windows has reserved the My Documents (or Documents) folder for your use. It is easy to create new folders and move files. You should organize your PC's data and know where to find files. It is no different than organizing your filing cabinet at home.
What are the different ways I can view my files?
Your files - documents, images, spreadsheets, audio files, video files, etc. - can be viewed in a variety of ways. Click the small down arrow in the upper right corner as shown in the above image.This brings up a tall menu, shown below, listing the various ways that the files in the active folder can be seen. We'll discuss each view below.
- Extra Large Icons: Called Thumbnails in older versions of Microsoft Windows.For photos and images, a good size thumbnail of the image displays. This is helpful if you have a folder with many images and you are trying to locate a particular image. For non-image files, a logo displays depicting the program (e.g. Excel) or file type (e.g. MPG4).
- Large Icons, Medium Icons, and Small Icons: The Large icons are large enough to be very useful. Medium icons are not very useful, and one can barely see the Small icons.
- List: displays folders and file names only, along with a tiny icon. You can view more files in a given space than with the other display options, but only the name is provided. This may be sufficient for many PC users or users with small monitors.
- Details: displays columns of information about the files. You can choose what data columns to display by right-clicking on a column heading. To sort by a particular column, click on the column name. Details is a useful display option.
- Tiles: On current systems, Tiles shows a medium-size icon or thumbnail, the file name, the type of document, and the document size in KB, MB, etc.
- Content: This option also shows each file, on its own row, preceeded by a medium-size icon or thumbnail. It lists the Author, Dates, and Size, if applicable.
► Take a look at some of our other interesting posts, such as Getting CDs and DVDs to Play Automatically on Your PC
