Desktop Shortcuts explained and how to add one to your Desktop
Shortcuts Explained
When you work with Windows the area on your screen is called the Desktop and will look something like the following picture (although you'll probably have less icons!).
You will notice that some of the icons on the desktop have an arrow symbol at the bottom left corner:
This shows that the icon is a shortcut.
All the files on your computer are stored in folders on the hard disk drive, and while this is a very effective and powerful way of managing the location of files it can be frustrating finding files that you access often.
Shortcuts are a powerful way of adding a 'pointer' to a file or program on your desktop so that you can access it easily and quickly.
Essentially a shortcut is a small file that tells Windows where it can find a particular file or program. When you double-click on a shortcut it's as though you're opening the file or program directly. However, what's actually happening is that Windows opens the shortcut and reads the information it contains about the file it's pointing to. With this information Windows is able to open the file or program you want.
Many programs will automatically install a shortcut on the Desktop to enable you to run them without having to search through the Start menu.
The following section will take you through the steps to add shortcuts to individual files. Don't get too carried away adding shortcuts to the desktop - it soon becomes very cluttered!
Adding a Shortcut to your Desktop
To add a shortcut to your desktop, move the mouse pointer so that it is on a blank area of the desktop (make sure the arrow is not over any icon or other object).
Right-click with the mouse (click the right mouse button once) and you will see a menu similar to the following:
Left-click the menu item New:
The new menu that appears will have a list of options. The menu you see will be different to the above picture, however you should see the two options at the top Folder and Shortcut.
Click on the menu option Shortcut to display the following wizard window:
If you know the full path and filename of the file you are creating the shortcut to you can type it in the box on this initial screen. It's more likely (and usually quicker) that you will want to locate the file on your hard disk. To do this click on the Browse button.
This will display the standard Find File window. Navigate through the folders on your hard disk until you find the file you are creating the shortcut for.
Select the file and click on OK to close the find file window. At this point you will see that the selected file, with it's full path, has been entered into the new shortcut wizard window:
Click Next and then enter a description that you want to appear below the shortcut on your Desktop (the wizard will give you a default description, but you can change this to something more descriptive):
Now click Finish, the wizard will disappear and you will find that there is a new shortcut on your Desktop pointing to your selected document.
Double-click on this new shortcut to open the document with the correct program.