Easy Mac OS X Lion - Kate Binder [13]
Click to select the file and press to see its Info window.
Click the gray triangle next to Open With in the Info window.
Choose an application from the pop-up menu, or choose Other to navigate to the program you want if it’s not listed.
Click Change All if you want to make the same change for all documents with the same extension. If you see a confirmation dialog box, click Continue.
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Tip: There’s More Than One Way
The directions here enable you to open a file in the right program by double-clicking its Finder icon. But if you’re in a hurry, you can just start the program and choose File, Open as described earlier in the task “Opening a File.”
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Finding Files with Spotlight
Spotlight is a powerful and speedy search utility. Built into the Finder, it’s always waiting for you in the upper-right corner of the screen. After it finds what you’re looking for, Spotlight doesn’t stop there; it organizes its results into categories and sorts them any way you like.
Click the Spotlight menu to display the search field.
Enter search terms in the field.
Click a document in the results to open it.
Click Show All in Finder to see more results.
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Tip: Talking Your Language
Spotlight is even smarter than it looks. Try adding natural–language search terms, such as “yesterday” (for files modified yesterday) or “image” (for image files), to narrow your searches.
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Click Add to display a filter menu for your search results.
Use the menus at the top of the window to filter the search results by time, location, or other criteria.
Click a column header to sort the results differently.
Double-click an item in the list to open the file.
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Tip: What’s It Look Like?
You can use any of the four view modes to sort through your results; Cover Flow and icon view work particularly well when you’re searching for an image.
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Tip: It’s a Long Way to the Menu Bar
If you don’t want to make the trip all the way up to the right-hand end of the menu bar with your mouse, you can also perform a Spotlight search in any Finder window that’s in single-window mode.
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Creating a Smart Folder
A smart folder collects related files into a single folder without moving the files from their original locations. One way to use a smart folder is to collect all the text modified in the last week so you can keep track of the files you’re currently working on.
Choose File, New Smart Folder.
Click to specify a location for the files you want to track in this folder.
Click Add to display filter menus for the files that will be shown in the smart folder.
Select a search criteria category and make a setting within that category; after you’ve created your filters, you can click Remove to delete a folder.
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Tip: On-the-Fly Smarts
The system adds files to the smart folder as soon as you start setting search criteria. Don’t worry about ending up with the wrong files in your smart folder, though; as you change the criteria, the folder’s contents are updated to reflect the new criteria.
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Click Save.
Enter a name and select a location for the folder.
Check Add To Sidebar if you want the folder to appear in the sidebar when you’re using single-window mode.
Click Save.
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Tip: Narrowing It Down
In addition to a file’s attributes, you can filter files for a smart folder based on text search terms. For example, to include files that contain the word Apple in the folder, enter that text in the search field at the top of the folder’s window.
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Tip: For Geeks Only (Not!)
To get really specific about the kinds of files in your smart folder, choose Other from any search attribute pop-up menu. In the dialog box, choose attributes. To add the selected attribute to the pop-up menu, check Add to Favorites.
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Creating a Burn Folder
Burn folders provide a way to collect files for burning later without having to actually move them. Dragging files into a burn folder