how do you make computer recognize the year when arranging files?

Question

I have windows ME, and I made some documents starting late last year on microsoft word and put them in a folder on my desktop.  I want to arrange the files by date, but when I right click and select to arrange them by date in the folder they are in the computer puts the documents made last year after some of the ones I have made this year.  Is there any way to make the computer recognize the year when arranging the files or is there a way to edit the date that they were made so the ones made last year are first in the folder?  Thanks for suggestions.   Also, if anyone knows I would be interested to know if there is a way to always make documents appear in a certain order regardless of their name, type, size, or date.   I know that I can drag them around and put them where I want in the folder, but for some reason after a few weeks or whatever they automatically go out of order for some reason. And it can be hard to rearrange if you have 30+ files in the folder. Message Edited by salmonella_fishgerald on 01-06-2005 08:21 PM

RoHe · Answer

Salmonella
(interesting screen name! Sal, for short?)

Don't use ME, but the OS is likely sorting by date last *modified* not by date created. Simplest solution would be to rename the files with year created in the name: 05-name.doc, 04-name.doc, 03-name.doc, and sort by file name.

Don't know if this works in ME, but in XP, you can group files: first sort by clicking date modified, then click view>arrange icons>show in groups. That will give groups of files *modified* today, yesterday, earlier this week, last week...

Ron

joe_mcguire · Answer

Here is a simple way. In Word 2000/2002 you can sort the files by Name in the Open window (the one where you go to open files), which I think is the default view, or by (Date) Modified. Click on the Modified heading and all the folders and files will be sorted chronologically according to the date of the last modification. Whatever sort order you choose will remain in effect until you change it, at least in theory. I have never tried to see how long this change "sticks" but if one day you notice Word is not sorting stuff the way you want, resetting the order is pretty quick and easy.

If you want a date other than the Modified Date, then your only choice seems to be setting up your own protocol for naming files so that when they are sorted by Name, you have named them so that they appear in chronological order. The dates must be expressed as numbers and the numbers have to be set up so that they will sort in a way that makes sense. I have done this for certain folders, e.g., monthly logs of certain activities or expenses. I named documents yyyy mmmm, where yyyy is the year in four digits and mmmm is the full alpha name of the month (e.g, 2004 December.doc). Sorting by name they all show up, in effect, sorted by year then by month, but alphabetically. In retrospect I probably should have used numbers for the months but I didn't. For my purposes it is not worth the time and effort to fix since I don't have to refer to the stuff very often.

salmonella_fish · Answer

thanks for the advice, it looks like it does save by the date that they were edited

joe_mcguire · Answer

You can use dashes, at least in Word, to separate elements of the date for easier readability, such as yyyy-mm-dd, so that a document saved with today's date would be named 2005-01-08*.* The first asterisk represents any additional info you want in the name; the second is your suffix, such as doc for Word.

MSL · Answer

To extend what joe_mcquire has posted, I have certain files with-in a folder that must be kept in chronological order. The folder determines what the files are, one example would be a folder named "Break Schedules". I use yyyymmdd_(time).xxx as the file names within the folder. Even though I do these quarterly I may save different versions due to variables that may arise. Most of my files are created using Excell, the naming keeps them in order. Military time is used so files are kept in order when created the same day, if the files are corrected (modified) they remain in chronological order. If a file is used as a base then modified, it is copied then renamed using the same format. This one folder has 57 files beginning with "20010213_0415.xls" to "20050102_2130.xls" and the files always appear in the same order.

Marc

Productivity Software

how do you make computer recognize the year when arranging files?

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