Save A File To A Specific Directory
SAVE A FILE TO A SPECIFIC DIRECTORY – THE EASY WAY
If you create a document say in Textedit and then save it. It’s usually straight-forward to save it. You click on File – Save As – type in the filename then save the file. But did you ever notice that the default in the Save As Dialog box is to *not* show you the directory structure? The Mac OS X assumes you’re going to save it on one of your main directories listed in Finder. If you want to save to a specific directory, you’ll have to tweak something to show you the Finder directories.
So what needs to be tweaked? Let’s take an example. Let me start with the text editor Textedit. I start it up. I start typing my document. And I do a File – Save As.
I’ll get this dialog box:
OPEN THE DIRECTORY STRUCTURE DIALOG BOX
If you’re like me, you would type in the filename in the Save As textbox and click Save.
By doing this the file will be saved in the DL folder. But what if you wanted to save it
some place else? Let’s say you have a subdirectory called work underneath DL. Since I
already saved the file to the work directory, I now have to go back to Finder and now move
it over to the work subdirectory. What is not
intuitive at first is to click on the “disclosure triangle”, the listbox down arrow.
When you do that, Voila, the directory structure opens!
Notice that the listbox down-arrow is now an up-arrow.
So now I can actually drill down to the work directory, click on it and then replace the
Save As textbox with my filename then click on the Save button and my file will be saved
in my preferred location ../DL/work/tomtest.rtf Textedit will remember which dialog
box you last chose.
DRAG YOUR PREFERRED DIRECTORY TO THE PLACES LOCATION
What if I want to create a bunch of related documents and want to save them
all in the ../DL/work subdirectory. I’d have to drill down to the work directory each
time after each new file I create, won’t I? Why couldn’t I have a work directory option
in the left side of the Save As dialog box? And you can!
Bring up Finder. Drill down to where the work directory is at, then drag the folder
right on top of the PLACES marker in the Finder dialog box and release. And it will be
added there.
Now when I want to create a document in Textedit and save it to the work directory rather
quickly, I now have a shortcut in Finder’s PLACES area. If I go back to the smaller Save As
dialog box from Textedit, the Where textbox will now have the work directory as an option for me. I just need to click on work then the Save button for each new document I create and it’s there.
REMOVE YOUR DIRECTORY FROM THE PLACES LOCATION
One last tip. What if I’m now done with the work directory and I want to remove it from Finder? Easy. Bring up Finder. Drag the work directory out of the Finder dialog box into the Desktop space and it will go poof! And it’s gone. And you can do this with any directory in Finder.
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