Adding SharePoint Document Libraries to the Save As Dialog

Original Post on my Old Blog; 3/25/2008

I am currently in New York delivering my SharePoint Information Architecture class and am honored to have Mark Miller attending.  Mark owns and operates No Geekspeak on SharePoint which is geared towards end user training.

During our class today Mark reminded me of a little trick that I felt deserved a blog post.  However, I do want to make sure Mark gets all the credit for this one!

Heres the scenario...

When, for example, you are saving a document, the Save As dialog will open giving you the opportunity to select a location and filename; see Figure 1.  When in an environment where SharePoint has been installed, one of the save locations is you're My Site.  This functionality I was always aware of; however, the ability to easily add links to the left vertical location bar in that Save As dialog I had forgotton.  Below are the steps to accomplish this little task.

1. Open an Office solution such as Microsoft Word.  This can be accomplished with any of these tools; however, the example below uses Microsoft Word.
2. Click on File -> Save or File Save As.
3. You will be prompted with a Save As dialog; as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 - Save As dialog, opened from Microsoft Word during a save operation.

If you have installed SharePoint in your environment, the Save As dialog will already contain a like to your personal My Site; as shown in Figure 1.

4. For the sake of this example, click on the My Site location.  You should then be displayed the Document Libraries in you're personal My Site.
5. Select one of the Document Libraries; this is accomplished by a single-click; do not double click it!  See Figure 2.

Figure 2 - Selecting a document library from your personal My Site.

6. Right-click in any "empty" part of the white "Save in" area; see Figure 3.

Figure 3 - Right-click in the white "Save in" area.

7. Notice the context popup menu contains an "Add ..." option. Select this option and the new location will be added to the Save As dialog.

Figure 4 - New "Save As" location has been added to the dialog.

This new location will now be available each time you use the Save As dialog; regardless of the type of file being saved!

This new "Save As" location can easily be removed by right-clicking over it and select the "Remove" option.

Thanks again for this tip Mark!