Monday, December 06, 2010

Kindle Skills - file searching

If you have quite a few books in a folder on your computer, sorting a folder may not be enough to help you quickly find a file. Windows and Macs have a search box at the top of every folder window that is just for helping you find a file.

Windows PC:
Windows wants to search the contents of files, as well as file names. This can be time consuming if you have to search a lot of files. If you know just part of a file name, you can type the word name: then a space, then type the word in the file name, and Windows will just search for a file with that word in the file name alone.
Mac: 
When you open a folder window on a Mac, you will see a similar search box in the upper right corner.
Be sure to click the list view button so you can see your files listed straight up and down instead of those darn icons. Once you begin typing in the search box, you will see a few other choices appear, This Mac, the name of the folder you are in, Shared, Contents and File Name. I like to choose File Name and the name of the folder I happen to be looking in at the time to narrow my search. 

These search tips also apply to files you may need to search for on your Kindle when it is connected to your computer via the USB cable. At that point you can treat it just like any other external hard drive. File management is the same.

Ask Mrs. Wizard:
Please send me a personal email (mrswizard@mrswizard.com) if you have any questions. I answer all my emails and am more than happy to help any time I can. Your questions mean a lot to me, and may even inspire an article that will help others and make this a more valuable resource to anyone who reads it. 

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