O T - Help Needed From You Knowledgable Folk

[the_constructor]

I know that this is not strictly DIY, more a computer group thread but I never seem to get any joy from those groups.

Basic problem. I wish print to a file for editing in Word a list of a folder contents.

I can do this using the DOS cmd prompt and then using dos commands to get to the folder and then "print > file.txt" then open Word and Open, do a search and then click ok.

Is there an easier way to do this. ?

Using Alt - PrnScreen only gives you an image of the screen.

Jim

[Andy Burns]

Depends what you think is "hard" about the way you're already doing it?

But this should let you send your directory listing direct to the clipboard

DIR /B C:\whatever | PIPE

then you can fire up word or notepad and paste the results in.

AnOther way could be to write a Word macro using the FileSystemObject COM object to read the folder contents and insert them direct to the word document.

[Andy Burns]

Grrr, bloody fingers with a mind of their own ... make that

DIR /B C:\whatever | CLIP

[NT]

There's also a windows program called LS that builds a file listing the contents of a hdd.

NT

[Howard Neil]

Try:-

[Tinkerer]

The sign > redirects the output of any command. As an example. To create a text file as you describe in a file called dirlist.txt in the root of C: drive containing the listing of folder C:\TestFolder open a command prompt and use: dir c:\testfolder > c:\dirlist.txt

[Robin]

[Tim Streater]

I use Terminal, get into the directory and do ls -la. I have a Word doc window open.

I then select all the interesting text in the directory listing, pick it up with the mouse and drag-n-drop it into the Word window. Done.

Easy.

[The Natural Philosopher]

is 'ls' a normal windows command?

I would have thought you could cut and paste from a 'finder' window..

[Bob Eager]

C> dir/b > list.txt

Then read list.txt into Word.

[Tim Streater]

You can do Select All and then copy and paste from a Finder window to a Word one. What you get is a list of files with no other info (such as sizes) but re-reading the OP perhaps that suffices.

[John Rumm]

LS is not a standard command that I am aware of up to Vista anyway... (you will get it if you install cygwin along with all the other usual

*nix style commands)

dir > file.txt

is pretty straight forward...

[NT]

:

thats why I said program, not command

Unless things have radically changed from when I last used DOS, that doesnt list the contents of every directory on the entire disc in one go.

NT

[Andy Burns]

it exists as an alias if you use powershell ... but the O/P asked for simpler ...

I thought that was what the O/P was doing already?

[NT]

te:

I see modern windows does have that option. Never encountered it in win98.

NT

[Andy Burns]

Was that what was requested? If so

DIR /S /B > file.txt

But having checked the original post, only one folder's worth of listing is required.

[<me9]

Ctrl-Alt PrnScreen will give just the window in focus to the clipboard. Paste into paint or your program of choice and print from there.

[Bob Eager]

Fine if the list actually fits the window, otherwise very tedious.

[chris French]

and it doesn't help the OP who wants a text file for editing

[John Rumm]

Did he ask for that? In which case:

dir /s > file.txt

or for DOS 3.3 era and older:

chkdsk /v > file.txt