Managing information on computersOrganising your work

Using computers and the internet to store, access and organise information carries some risk. You need to take responsibility to make sure files are not lost, corrupted or viewed by the wrong person.

Part ofICTSoftware

Organising your work

The number of files and folders you use can grow quickly over the course of a project. If they’re not well organised, you can waste a lot of time trying to find what you’re looking for.

To ensure your work is easy to find, use relevant and names and a sensible folder structure. It’s important to use an approach that will be understood by everyone, especially if you’re working on a group project, so other members of the group will be able to find what they’re looking for.

This is an example of a project with well-named files, folders and . Good file and folder names instantly tell you what they contain.

Well named files and folders from a large project
Figure caption,
An organised folder structure helps the user to find their files

File extensions

Files have two parts to their names – a name and an extension. The purpose of a file extension is to tell the computer what type of file it is. The file extension is typically three or four letters long and is always at the end of a file name. There are hundreds of different file extensions.

Common file extensions

ExtensionFile type
*.docDocument
*.xlsSpreadsheet
*.jpgImage
*.exeExecutable
Extension*.doc
File typeDocument
Extension*.xls
File typeSpreadsheet
Extension*.jpg
File typeImage
Extension*.exe
File typeExecutable
Various file names and file type extensions
Figure caption,
Examples of different file extensions