Working with the New Document and Upload Document Tools

Located to the far left of the Documents tab on the Ribbon, the New Document and Upload Documents tools are frequently used tools that allow a user with sufficient permissions to create a new document using the template assigned to the document library or upload documents. The Upload Document tool was discussed in detail in the “Adding Documents to a Document Library” section and so won’t be covered in more detail in this section.

Follow these steps to use the New Document tool:

1. From within a document library, using an account with contributor or greater permissions, click the New Document icon.
2. A warning message may appear when the template.dotx or other template file (if defined by the administrator) loads; click OK.
3. Word 2010 loads and displays the template. Customize the template in whatever fashion desired, and click the Save icon. SharePoint remembers that the template was stored in the document library, so will prompt for a document name to save to the library. Provide a document name and click Save.
4. Click Exit from the File Menu in Word 2010 and Word will close, and the new document will appear in the document library. It will be tagged with a NEW label.
5. Hover over the document in the document library and select View Properties for the new document, and a window will open that shows the properties of the document, including several tools, the Created date and time and user as well as the Last Modified date, time, and user, as shown in Figure 19.9.

   Figure 19.9. View Properties for a new document.

   

The document library administrator can edit the template from the Document Library Settings page, Advanced Settings link. Also, if the document library has been configured to allow management of content types by the library administrator (also available from the Document Library Settings page, Advanced Settings link), the content types available in the document library will appear in this menu.

The Upload Document tool replicates the functionality the Add Document link covered previously in this chapter with the exception that accessing the drop-down menu beneath the icon in the Documents tab of the Ribbon bar gives the option of Uploading Multiple Documents directly. If you click the Add Document link at the bottom of the page, you then have to click a second time to select Upload Multiple Documents. Although not a huge time saver, end users often appreciate tips of this nature.